Charles Stanley Braine (1874-1944) –  the Rajah of Mawatte By George Braine   The e-mail, with the question “Are you a Ceylon Braine?”, arrived out of the blue when I lived in Hong Kong. The writer – I’ll call her Susan – had found me on the Internet. She went onto detail some family history, and claimed that, because she and I shared great, great grandparents, we were third cousins. Family history had been an interest since she was 10 years old. She had inherited a collection of family documents and a photo album, and also found family documents from research in the UK. She mentioned that both my great, great grandfather and great grandfather had been planters in Ceylon. This came as a huge surprise. Not having delved into family history, I was under the impression that my grandfather was the first Braine to arrive in Ceylon. Instead, from ...

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A Planter’s Dream or Folly By George Braine In tracing our family tree in Ceylon, my sister and I visited Yakwila Estate, near Pannala in the NWP, where my English grandfather Charles Stanley Braine served as manager in the early 1900s. There, we were told about a fascinating bungalow at nearby Andigama Estate. The Yakwila managers did not have the vocabulary (in Sinhala) to describe the bungalow, nor did they have any photos to show us, even on a website. But they insisted it was a “must see”. We did not know what to expect. At Andigama, up a winding drive, we came upon a sight that blew us away. Here, in all its splendor, was an English manor house, in a mix of Georgian and half-timber style, the latter seen all over Europe. The year of completion, carved over the front entrance, was 1922. Upon entering, we were amazed ...

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