«< MONTHLY. 
Vol. XVIII. 
COLOMBO, AUGUST 1st, 1899. 
No, 2. 
"PIONEERS OF THE PLANTING ENTERPRISE IN CEYLON. 
{mrd Series,) 
W. B. LAMONT: 
COFFEE, COCONUT, CINNAMON, CACAO AND TEA PLANTER, 
1841-] 899i 
HE subject of our notice was 
wont to be described by the 
late Mr. A. M. Ferguson as 
the "Hugh Miller" of Cey- 
lon. And, when in his prime 
there was a good deal of 
resemblance between Mr. 
Lamont and his distinguished countryman— also 
a self-made man— but our portrait it must be 
remembered, is taken of the Ceylon Pioneer, 
as an old man well entered on his 83rd year. In 
another way there has been a resemblance 
between W. B. Lamont and Hugh Miller, 
namely, in the terse, vigorous style which the 
former gradually acquired and utilized so well in 
numerous contributions to the Observer in his 
younger and even later days— his sentences often 
reminding one of much in Miller's "My Schools and 
Schoolmasters " and other well-known works. Few- 
Ceylon pioneers have had such a diversified ex- 
perience of planting in the Colony as W. B. 
Lamont, for he acquired, in due succession, a practi- 
cal acquaintance with the cultivation of each of our 
leading products, and is now as much interested 
in Tea as ever he was in Coffee, Coconuts or 
Cinnamon. Landing in Ceylon on 17th February, 
1841, he proceeded at once to the heart of the 
then inaccessible district of Ambagarauwa to help 
to form the "Barcaple" coffee plantation; and- 
after a terrible time of trial, from want of coolies 
and of nearly everything that has now come to be 
part and parcel of a planter's life, Mr. Lamont 
in 1845 changed his employment, being engaged 
by Capt. Jolly to open Atherton, another un- 
fortunate Ambagamuwa estate. Ten years were 
passed ; and in the beginning of 1853, he was 
transferred by Capt. Jolly to the more prosperous 
Poengalla plantation in East Matale. He continued 
two years more in coffee— 16 years in all— and 
then in the latter part of 1857, left the hill country 
and took charge of the Eatmalana Cinnamon and 
Coconut plantation, not far from Mount Lavinia, 
under the direction of Mr. Robert Dawson as 
Colombo agent. Mr. Dawson lost the agency in 
1859 and Mr. Lamont left to take up "Coffee 
Store" work at Uplands, under Mr. David Wilson, 
head of the leading Colombo firm — Wilson, Ritchie 
& Co. — of that day. This, however, was not con- 
genial work to the hardy Scot who had so long been 
trained to an out-of-door life and who, like his 
countrymen, the Douglases, would any day prefer 
" to hear a lark sing than a mouse cheep" ! So, in 
1860, Mr. Lamont got charge from Messrs. Darley 
Butler & Co. of the estates of Uluambalama and 
Kimbulpitya (Cinnamon and Coconuts) in the 
Negombo District. After eleven years of faithful 
service here, Mr. Lamont got twelve months' leave 
