The Kandy Club, from old charm to modernity

By Chandani Kirinde

The Kandy Club is nearly 150 years old and is a direct link to the colonial past of the hill capital. Located a short distance from the Dalada Maligawa on Anagarika Dharmapala Mawatha, formerly Malabar Street, it is a place that was once patronised by top British civil servants including British-Ceylon’s Governor Generals, their military brass and top-shots in the mercantile sector.

Two British Governors of Ceylon namely Arthur Hamilton-Gordon who served from 1883- 1890 as well as Sir Andrew Caldecott who was Governor from 1937-1944 were among the high-profile personalities who served as presidents of the Kandy Club.

Well-known British civil servant Leonard Woolf who served in Ceylon from 1904-1911 spent a  year in Kandy and wrote of his experience at the Kandy Club in his autobiography “Growing” which gives an insight into the social life of those serving in the  colonial administration.

The Club was founded in 1877 and was housed initially in what was then the first nursing home in Kandy. Later it moved to Haramby House (now Hotel Suisse). The Club thereon moved its premises to two other locations before settling into its current premises in April 1948 having acquired the present property on Malabar Street.

The club culture which is a legacy of British rule and remains active in countries once governed by Britain were founded as social centres for those serving at civil stations and the military where officers and their family members met for leisure, exercise and to keep up with the latest on the grapevine. The clubs were exclusively for Europeans. They began to open up to locals only in the years before independence.

Leonard Woolf served in Kandy for a year starting from August 1907 before his transfer as Acting Assistant Government Agent to the Hambantota District.

Woolf wrote of his impression of the Kandy Club as well the British club culture in general in this autobiography, but his impressions were not always flattering. “After tennis I usually went down to the Kandy Club. In those days in an Asiatic station where there was ‘the Club’, it was a symbol and centre of British imperialism although perhaps we might not be fully conscious of it. It had normally a curious air of slight depression, but at the same time exclusiveness, superiority, isolation. Only the ‘best people’ and of course only white men were members. At the same time there was none of the physical luxuriousness, spaciousness, or at least comfort of a London club; it was, indeed, a poky, gloomy, and even rather sordid building.”

Particularly at weekends, he wrote, “there would be an invasion of planters.”

The first Sri Lankans to be admitted as members of the Kandy Club were Chandra Wijenayake, former chairman of Central Finance Company Ltd., Col. Stanley Ratwatte, Dr. Nadesan and Alan Nugawela. The first Sri Lankan President of the Club was Col. S.D. Ratwatte who was elected  in 1965/1966. A walk inside the premises of  the Kandy Club gives an insight into the colonial past of the place with group photographs framed and hung on the walls showing men, all British, in uniform. The oldest billiard table in the country too is housed at the Kandy Club.

Today the Kandy Club has around 300 members with the demand for membership remaining high. The Club is equipped with modern amenities and its current office bearers have ensured that the place retains a high standard in its services with non-members allowed access to services through a member.

This Club continues to retain its old charm amidst the hustle and bustle of the busy street that was formerly Malabar Street, as hundreds of pilgrims dressed in white make their way to the Dalada Maligawa to pay homage to the tooth relic of Lord Buddha. It’s a distant cry from the heydays of colonial rule but the Kandy Club stands out as a reminder of days gone by while adapting to the changes of the present day.