CEYLON SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA MELBOURNE CHAPTER – Bill Mackie presenting “Some History of an Australian Family in Colonial Ceylon”

Sunday 18 March 2018, 5.00pm
Alvei Hall,
314 High Street Road, Mount Waverley
for enquiries contact Hemal 0427 725 740

This is a story about 3 generations of an Australian family with links to Ceylon from 1909 to 1959. During this period their connections to Ceylon spanned the establishment and growth of the tea industry, right through the political and social changes that swept pre and post independence Ceylon. There were times of collaboration, interaction and innovation, where the origins of a multi-cultural Eastern- Western world emerged out of traditional Ceylon. Many different stories have been written and spoken of these times and this is another interesting chapter in that story, of how foreigners and locals interacted to shape and influence the emergence of a different Ceylon.

We have all heard of Lionel Wendt and his famous photographs of Ceylon. In this talk we are privileged to hear more about his other creative endeavours and interests as part of his interaction with this Australian family.

William “Bill” Mackie was born in Nuwara Eliya in 1922 to parents who were originally from Melbourne. His early years were spent at the Galaha tea estate near Kandy, before returning to
Australia for school and to live on a small farm in northern Victoria. He studied Agricultural Science at Melbourne University and served in the RAAF during the World War II. Bill was a research officer for the Federal Government before he spent 30 years on agricultural research with ICI Australia Ltd. and its associated companies. In his retirement he spends much of his time researching and recording his family’s history. Bill and his late wife Kathleen visited Sri Lanka in 1982 and met Tamil staff who worked for his father in 1927.
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Sunday 18 March 2018, 5.00pm
Alvei Hall,
314 High Street Road, Mount Waverley
for enquiries contact Hemal 0427 725 740