648 
TtiE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[April 2, 1894. 
AN HAKD-HEADED ABRRDONIAN. 
In speaking of the early Planting Pioneers of 
Ceylon, one is inevitably reminded of the 
'* granite city " and the district of which it 
forms the capital. " Tak' awa' Aberdeen and 
twal miles roun' an' faur (where) are ye?" 
is specially applicable to the beginnings of the 
Planting Industry in Ceylon. John Gavin was 
pre-eminently a large as well as a hard-headed 
' Aberdonian.' His portrait, it will be noted, does 
not belie the description. He was born in Sep- 
tember, 1819, atStrichen, Aberdeenshire, where his 
father. Dr. Gavin, — after retiring from the Navy — 
acquired a very large practice to which his son — a 
brother of John — succeeded. The sisters of our Mr. 
Gavin again married well-known men , one of these, 
Dr. Anderson of the Gymnasium, Aberdeen, whose 
sons as Anderson, Anderson & Co. became the 
founders of the Orient Steam Navigation Company ; 
and another sister was married to Dr. Anderson of 
Morpeth, the father of John and Geo. Anderson of 
Philpot Lane, both of whom like thair uncle, be- 
came closely connected with Ceylon. Mr. Gavin 
•was educated in the Parish School of Strichen — at 
a time when the parochial system of Scotland 
afforded the most admirable groundwork for a 
youth's education of any school-system in the 
world. He afterwards passed to a Grammar School 
or College in Aberdeen. Intended for mercantile 
life, we next find him as a mere stripling, (17 
or 18 years at most) in a meichant's oiiice in 
Manchester ; but this did not suit his health; for 
after no long interval he had to return home 
and the old Doctor set him to fanning on a farm 
tenanted by himself. John Gavin continued here 
for several years — perhaps five — until the farm was 
given up on his father's death ; and then John 
went into the Agency OHice of t he Union Bank in 
Peterhead as an Assistant Accountant. Passing 
from thence to the same Bank's office in Aberdeen, 
he, very soon after, followed in the track of a good 
many of his countymen to the Far East of 
Ceylon. He was now in his 24th year, and it 
must be confessed had had an admirable training 
as farmer, banker and businessman to qualify 
him for his future career of coffee planter and 
merchant. 
IN CEYLON AS PLANTER. 
Mr. Gavin landed in Ceylon on the 4th July, 
184.^, and very soon got employment imder 
what was then the leading planting house, 
Messrs. Acland, Boyd & Co. By them, one 
account says, he was sent to Galoya estate 
above Peradeniya, where he was in charge in 
September of that year. Another report, how- 
ever, is that Mr. Gavin was first sent as 
assistant to Windsor Forest and Kelvin estates, 
Doldsbage district, and thence he ■^^'as remoVed 
to Mooloya estate, Upper Hewaheta, which he 
opened and continued to manage for some years. 
After this, he had another move to Kondeaalle 
in the Dumbara Valley- Here he was manager 
when the dark days of 1847-8 overtook Ceylon- 
wild speculation being followed by depreu^ion 
and stagnation intensified by the low price to 
which coffee had fallen after the abolition of 
the dilFerential duty which protected British- 
grown from the competition of Java and Brazil 
cofl'ee. .So low did the ))rice fall, that in 1849 
it was only per hustvel in Kandy, and the 
natives did not take the trouble to pick their 
crops ! Two crops of Ba<lulla c<:)ffee were sold at 
the estates' stores for 3s. a bu«}iel ; and 
a dealer elsewhere has related to lu that he 
bought a bu.sliel of rice and a cwt. of native 
coffee for the same price 9s. ! One-tenth of the 
plantations ori;iiiially opened were at this time 
abandoned ; wliile others were Hacrifice<l for 
•'a mere song. ' An estate that sold in I84.S 
for £15,000 was in 1847 knocked down at 
auction for £440 only ! Hindugalla plantation, 
Badulla, which had cost £10,000 realized at 
sale but £500 ; and these are specimens of many 
more similar transactions. 
MERCHANT : '• HONEST JOHN." 
Messrs. Acland, Boj-d & Co. succumbed, 
and in 1848 Mr. Gavin joined another of the 
firm's employees, Mr. Pitts, in establishing 
the Kandy Agency firm of Messrs. Pitts & 
Gavin. It was a time when it required no 
ordinary courage, perseverance and hard work 
to make a ;in>fitable business, and Mr. Gavin 
had undoiibtodly ;ill these elements ; but after 
a few years, the death of his partner broke up 
the firm, and (in 1856) Mr. GaWn saw his way 
to do better by placing his services as managing 
partner at the dispo.sal of his countrymen, 
Messrs. Keir and Dundas, who had established 
the firm still known by their name in the 
Central capital, and which was destined to rise 
to its highest pitch of prosperity under Mr. 
Gavin's guidance. It was before this tune 
that Mr, Gavin's plain, straightforward speech 
and just dealings had earned for him the title 
of Hone^it John among the planters. 
EARLY EXPERIENCES AS PIONEER. 
Before, however, approaching the prosperous 
days of the "fifties," we may refer back to 
some of Mr. Gavin's early experiences as a 
Planter, to shew how well he desen ed the good 
fortune which afterwards overtook him, mainly, 
however, as the result of his ovra industry, 
shrewdness and integrity. The proverbial 
^8-6-8d. per month did not even come to John 
Gavin at the outset of his career as planter : 
he started rather on a salary of £5-10s. or 55 rupees 
a month, and he has been heard to describe 
