History of Ceylon Tea

My wife’s great-grandfather, David Mitchell, owned and managed a tea and coffee estate in Rakwana called “Palamcotta" in the 1860s and 1870s. His eldest son - her grandfather, David Hogarth Peel Mitchell - was born in 1868 at Palamcotta, as were two of his siblings. One of the stories that has come down in the family is that Great-Grandfather Mitchell was once reaching under the verandah for a shovel when, instead, he pulled out a five-foot long cobra  - with the tail in one hand and the neck in the other! He called out to Great-Grandmother, “Quick, bring the Breadknife, Mary!!” - which indeed she did, frantically proceeding to saw the cobra in half, and then fainting straight away onto the verandah floor! Sometime after the ruinous coffee blight hit the Rakwana District, the estate was sold and the Mitchells relocated to Victoria, Australia, where Mary Ann (nee’ Henderson) had been born.

This is a photo of the Palamcotta bungalow in 1872, showing some of the estate workers on the left of the house along with David MItchell at the front door and Mary Ann in the window. J.F. Wehner.