? o<\ MONTHLY. >> 
Vol. XIV. 
COLOMBO, JULY 2nd, 1894. 
NO. 1. 
(i 
PIONEERS OF THE PLANTING ENTERPRISE IN CEYLON." 
JAMES TAYLOR, 
PLANTER FROM 1852 TO 1892; PIONEER IN CINCHONA AND TEA PLANTING IN CEYLON. 
HE subject of this brief 
memoir lived a very quiet, 
retired life for nearly all bis 
sojourn in Ceylon as Super- 
intendent of the Loole Con- 
dera plantation in the 
Hewaheta district. He 
would have been the last 
to seek or desire public notice ; but the fact 
that he was one of the very first of Ceylon 
planters to experiment in the cultivation of both 
Cinchona and Tea, and the veiy careful way in 
which James Taylor persevered with both pro- 
ducts to the establishment of successful industries, 
fully merits that his name should be included 
among Ceylon's Planting Pioneers, although 
his term of residence began a good deal later than 
that of most of the Colonists hitherto noticed in 
these pages. In one respect James Taylor stands 
unique among our biographies ; he never was a 
" proprietor*" but continued from first to last on 
the same plantation (never returning home 
even on a holiday !), the very ideal of a faithful, 
hard-working, intelligent Superintendent and a 
more devoted, reliable Manager an absent estate 
proprietor never had in Ceylon. 
We now proceed to give all the facts within 
our reach, that go to make up a brief memoir 
* As will be seen farther on, this has to be slightly 
qualified U r jugh Mr. Taylor having had for a very 
short time, a share in a small cinchona plantation, 
of James Taylor. For the following account of 
his early days and first Ceylon engagement, we 
are indebted to an Edinburgh correspondent : — 
James Taylor was born at Mosspark, Monboddo, 
on March 29th, 1835- His father, who survives 
aim and is now in his 84th year, was a respect- 
able hard-working man, and his mother, Margaret 
Moil, was daughter of Robert Moir, of Laurence- 
kirk. James was the eldest of a family of six and 
deeply attached to his mother, whose death took 
place in 1844 when her little son had just 
completed his ninth year. This was to him 
a bitter sorrow and irretrievable loss, and 
after this, his home life was a sad one. James 
was educated at a school, in the lovely 
village ol Auehenblae, which stands at the 
entrance to the beautiful glen of Drumtochty. 
His teacher, Mr. David Soutar, was a good and 
painstaking man, much beloved by his scholars 
in whom he encouraged a love of learning, and 
many of them made their mark in the world after 
Mr. Soutar's departure for Australia. In those 
days James Taylor is remembered by his minister 
as "a quiet, steady-going lad with prominent 
eyes and eyebrows and a heavy but thoughtful 
expression." When his father married again, 
home life became almost unbearable to the young 
lad who was no favorite with his stepmother. 
As he grew older he disliked what he considered 
the drudgery of farm-life, and pleaded with his 
father to allow him to continue }iis education or 
