ABSTRACT
‘Furnished in English Style’: Anglicization of Local Elite Domestic Interiors in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) c. 1850 to 1910
Robin Jones
This article describes and explains an under-researched aspect of British contact with the population of Ceylon during the nineteenth century. Adoption of westernized life-styles by the local social elite will be discussed using evidence of their domestic furnishings and an assessment will be made of the significance of this cultural shift. Previous secondary literature about this elite has concentrated on such issues as the formation of this social group, its social composition, status competition, and the effect of western education; the outward trappings of western cultural assimilation (for example, wearing apparel and housing) have been briefly described in some of these studies, however, non-documentary evidence marking the cultural transformation of this elite, especially in the form of their furnishings, has received only passing mention in the literature. To date, no detailed study has been made of an important site for this transformation, namely the Ceylonese domestic interior and the furnishing of that space as a location which both engendered and supported the production western life-styles on the island. The purpose of the present article is to address this neglect, using an aspect of the material culture of the colonial era in Ceylon. It will be suggested that furnishing in ‘English style’ allowed the local elite to demonstrate their civility and taste, as well as their modernity to their peers and the British; however, this process also created hybrid and non-traditional environments on the island where western cultural forms were socially produced.