THE NAME
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A Burgher in Sri Lanka, formerly called Ceylon, used to refer to someone descended from employees of The Dutch East India Company (`Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or The V.O.C.) the 17th and 18th century colonial rulers of the coastal regions of the island. There was, and still is, an organisation called `the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon` where the genealogies of some 200 of these families are maintained. However, over the last century, the term `Burgher` came to include Ceylonese/Sri-Lankans of British ancestry.

ITS ORIGINS

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In the late 1800s nearly the British Colonists in Ceylon faced protests from other European settlers associated with the previous Dutch Colonists arising from their refusal to continue registering the births of their new born in their respective countries of origin. Registering such births in Ceylon, resulting in those children being classified as `natives`, caused embarrassment to the British because to classify such children of European parents as natives was against the accepted belief of white supremacy which prevailed in Europe.

The Royal Commissioner defined Burghers to include those persons of European descent so that it distinguished them from the `natives` and thus saved the British from the embarrassment that the previous protest action had caused.
The community that remained in the island when the VOC left mounted to about 900 families which, in the following years, developed its own hybrid culture and cuisine. English-speaking, Christian and imbued with Western ideas of freedom and civic responsibility, they became indispensable to the British government. They entered every sphere of activity including administration, medicine, the judiciary, scientific and technical fields, surveying, irrigation, engineering, archaeology and made enduring contributions in literature, music and painting, and in sport.

FREEDOM FIGHTERS
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The Burghers were leaders of the freedom movement, through their association with the Legislative and Municipal Councils.
The Burgher intelligentsia in the 1860s was led by a young man who hailed from Matara - Charles Ambrose Lorensz. Together with a group of young Burghers like Leopold Ludovici, Francis Bevan, Samuel Grenier and James Stewart Drieberg they purchased the Ceylon Examiner, the first Ceylonese newspaper. Until his death in 1871, at the age of forty two, Lorensz wielded the powerful influence of his pen for social reform, championing democratic causes and courageously criticizing the British colonial government, the Governor and his Executive Council.

Another Burgher who agitated for greater freedom for the island was George Alfred Henry Wille, well-known for his knowledge in constitutional matters and member of the Ceylon Congress, J.L.K. Van Dort, whose 19th Century paintings are displayed in the Leyden (Netherlands) Art Gallery, Supreme Court judges Noel Gratiaen, Sir Richard Morgan and J.G. Hildebrand, Surgeon and anthropologist R.L. Spittel, Surveyor and historian R.L. Brohier and too many others to mention. Burghers prominent in Sri Lanka today include poet Jean Arasanayagam and campaigner against child abuse Maureen Seneviratne.


SINHALA ONLY ACT
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Following Ceylon `independence` in 1948, and more gravely, the discriminatory `Sinhala Only` policy introduced by the government in 1956, the Burgher community found themselves disadvantaged. English had been adopted by the Burgher community and had since evolved into the only language that they were adept at from a professional standpoint at any rate. For many, this prospect alone determined their fate and the vast majority, many of whom enjoyed a lifestyle in Ceylon that they would have found hard to replicate anywhere else, nevertheless sought the shores of predominantly English-speaking Australia for the sake of their children and future generations. Other families moved to Canada, the U.K. and New Zealand.

Burghers who have emigrated to, largely Western, countries include Professor David de Kretser, Governor of Victoria the late Fred van Buren, long-serving member of the Victorian Legislative Council philanthropist Sir Christopher Ondaatje and his author-brother Michael Ondaatje member of `The Seekers` singing group Keith Potger Test cricketer and coach Dav Whatmore Roger Herft, Archbishop of Perth W.A. and Volunteer Social Worker Lorna Wright O.A.M. 


Some of the stories of the Burghers who emigrated in those early years is amazing. The common saying among migrants was `we`re going for our children`s sake`. History knows many Burgher migrants held top notch positions in the Mercantile, Banking, Government sectors, others in the Medical sector names too numerous to mention.
History can reveal what the Burghers meant and contributed to Ceylon as it were then. But instead, the P & O passenger liners `Oriana`, `Oransay`, `Chusan` and the regular caller `Canberra`, among others, sailed from the Colombo harbour with monotonous regularity carriying away our Burgher folk.



If only they had stayed - who knows what might have been !!!

GOOD NEIGHBOR
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The Burgher Community has developed its own unique culture (which defines it best) made up of the spotlessly clean and neat Burgher home its delectable and distinctive cuisine its furniture its Judeo-Christian legacy of faith its dedication to sports its pursuit of education and academic excellence Its unbending commitment to free expression and thought its love of music, singing, dance and the theatre-in essence the fine art or refined living or refinement.

Today, more than ever, this distinctive heritage has to be restated and rejuvenated by the Burghers themselves, now emerging from a 40-year life in the dark world of the lost and the forgotten.

In his or her heart every Burgher knows that this Island is their beloved HOME - the Motherland that nurtured the community for 500 years.

Burghers have lived in Sri Lanka at peace and in harmony with every other community. They have been a law-abiding people singularly dedicated to minding their own business yet able to respond to a neighbour`s cry for help without consideration of caste, class, colour or creed.

That`s why it is necessary today, more than ever, to retrieve (and reaffirm) the inimitable Burgher legacy with all it implies for the health and future of Sri Lanka as a wholesome polity.