Home >> History

A Place in the Country

THE ARRIVAL OF SIR THOMAS MAITLAND

Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Maitland set foot in Ceylon on 17th July 1805 taking up his appointment as His Majesty's Representative: the second British Governor of the island.

At the age of forty-six, he was a man with considerable military experience, having proved himself an effective leader in India and elsewhere. On arrival he characteristically set to work with great vigour. Maitland spent his first six months familiarising himself with the economic and administrative situation of Ceylon following the departure of the first British Governor, Frederick North. Duty bound, he visited almost every district, and meticulously examined the public expenditure of each department. By 19th October 1805 Maitland had sent an extensive report to the Colonial Secretary in London, in which he submitted 123 folios of detailed manuscript, containing 57 enclosures.

Thomas Maitland came from one of the oldest families and clans of Scottish nobility, whose ancestry can be traced to the Normans. There is evidence that the Maitlands were descended from one of the companions of William the Conqueror, who in 1130, settled in Northumberland, part of Scotland at the time. The name Maitland is believed to have derived from variations of the names Matulant, Mautalent and Maitalant. Thomas Maitland came from a long line of ancestors with military backgrounds, and among his near-contemporaries in the clan were Captain Frederick Maitland of the HMS Bellerophon who accepted Napoleon's surrender, and General Sir Peregrine Maitland who commanded the Foot Guards at Waterloo.

He had been born into a wealthy family, much of that wealth inherited through the maternal side. His mother, Mary Lombe, was the granddaughter of a Norfolk weaver, who had accumulated the then considerable fortune of 120,000 sterling pounds. His elder brother, James, as the family heir, took the title and became the eighth Earl of Lauderdale. Thomas Maitland, as the seventh Earl of Lauderdale's second son, followed the family military traditions, and was commissioned into the Seaforth Highlanders Regiment in 1778 at the age of nineteen. He went into active service in India where he impressed and gained the respect of Lord Cornwallis, the Viceroy of India. From his experiences serving in India, he developed a life-absorbing interest in the British Empire and the problems of its administration.

His flair for administration was the driving force that would mark Maitland's Governorship in Ceylon. He was critical of the policies that his predecessor Frederick North had put in place, and extremely dissatisfied that he had been left with an empty exchequer. It was with great determination that Governor Maitland set about turning the economy round and moulding the administrative establishment into an effective organisation. His first major work was a full report for the attention of the Colonial Office in London, following intensive investigations and enquiries. It is notable that he had accomplished this task even before he, the new Governor, had found himself a suitable residence from which he could conduct the business of government.

At the end of this detailed and thorough correspondence with Lord Camden, the Colonial Secretary on 19th October 1805, Maitland mentioned for the first time his personal need for comfortable accommodation on the island, and especially his desire for a place in the country. Upon his arrival, Maitland had taken residence at King's House, a dwelling situated within the Fort of Colombo and vacated the previous year by General Macdowall, the Commander of the British Forces. King's House had been the former private residence of the last Dutch Governor, Johan Van Angelbeek (1794-1796) and had become the property of the British Government in repayment of a debt. On taking residence, Maitland found King's House in a state of considerable disrepair and uninhabitable. His predecessor Governor North had not resided here, but at a small house in St. Sebastian.

Writing from King's House, Maitland insisted:
'My own situation in one respect is exceedingly uncomfortable. I would have had no place to live in at all if Mr. North had not ordered the house I am now in, and which had been unroofed by lightning, to be repaired antecedent to my arrival. As it is, it is an extra bad one, and will require constant repair, but I must have some place in the country without which nobody can go on.
I do not consider the house Mr. North lived in (St. Sebastian's) decent accommodation for any man.'

Five months later, on 10th March 1806, he wrote again to the Colonial Secretary in London, with great satisfaction, advising that he had taken care of his urgent need for fitting and appropriate accommodation. It would seem that Maitland's extensive tour of the island had served more than one purpose: he had at last found the perfect location for his country residence in the village of Galkissa. Furthermore, he had by then completed the building of this house.