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Chelvanayagam Barr Kurnarakulasinghe was born at Tellipalali on March 5th. 1880. His father the late Mudaliar
Joseph William P. Barr Kumarakulasinghe, a Tamil poet and scholar whose name finds worthy mention in Arnold's
Galaxy. I do not believe in the distinction of gentle birth unless life is influenced by such gentleness.
Chellams claims to noble parentage, high in the social sense, were well warranted by the nobleness of his character.
"A mountain stream that ends in mud methinks is melancholy." It is a common failing among men whose lives
are, light as vanity without a featherweight of redeeming merit, to rejoice in the glory of a long burnt out star
of an ancestral post. High lineage in such cases is only a matter for regret that the last link of a golden chain
should be of a baser metal. Where, however, the life lived and the character enshrined in that life are noble in
duty and in love we may well allow the claims of lineage seeing that evolution has not erred in the making of man.
Give me an who is noble, he is his ancestry.
Chellam was the youngest of nine children. In his life time one of his sisters Mrs. Saktivelupillai died at a lamentably
young age. I remember the day at Dehiwala when the sad news came from Jaffna. Chellam was then preparing for a
reading prize at the Royal College. He had thoroughly mastered Tennyson's Guinevere, the passage
which describes the Queen's penitence, and there was such .a naturalness and beauty with whih he read the concluding
lines of the Queen's soliloquy:
It was my duty to have loved the highest:
It surely was my profit had I known:
It would have been my pleasure had I seen,
We needs must love the highest when we see it,
Not Lancelot, not another.
it seemed sure that he would have distinguished himself at next day's contest-but the death of a sister, one
to whom he was most attached came between. His eldest brother survived him, having seen his best.efforts on behalf
of Che1lam blooming to success and the blossom fade in its prime. Great gladness was his and great sorrow. The
other brothers and sisters are alive. Mr. R. R. B. Kumarkulasinghe is the Maniagar of Valigamam North, Mr. S. S.
B. Kumarakulasinghe is the Kacherry Mudliar of Trincomalie, Mr. A. B. Kumarakulasinghe is the assistant to the
Katcherry Mudliar at Batticaloa. Of the sisters the eldest is the wife of Dr. Joshua at Trincomalie, another is
the wife of Mudliyar Muttiah of Kayts, and the youngest the wife of the present writer. Chellam's father died on
the 14th of August 1883 at Tellipallai leaving a large family of nine chi1dren and his widow, and the family properties
heavily involved. It was the patience, considerateness, and self-denial of the eldest son K. C. B. Kumarakulasinghe
Mudliar on whom naturally the burden of the whole family devolved, that restored the properties to the family free
and un-encumbered, placed the brothers in positions of trust and competence, and suitably married out the sisters.
The eldest had been married in his father's life-time.
In 1890 Chellam was taken to Colombo by his eldest brother and put in the Royal College. He won one of the Cambridge
Local exhibitions for three years. After passing the London Matriculation in the division in June 1897 he continued
for some time in the Royal College, and then joined the Wesley College where in I899 he won the university scholarship.
In October '99 he joined Oxford.
At Manipay, Jaffna, a week before leaving for Oxford,he told me that the Ministry was his choice, indeed he had
told me so all along. I have been blamed for not dissuading him from the idea, when he took from me Van Der
Hooght's Hebrew Bible and Mason's Hebrew Grammar. At Colombo he was dissuaded from making
the Ministry the aim of his life -the Hebrew books were left behind for me. Has there been joy over the change?
Though the Civil Service was chosen for him I know that he hankered after Christ's Service-and the Lord has most
unmistakably spoken in the emphasis of sorrow that He would have the best, and who hath dared to say Him, nay?
The following is from a letter written to him by Mr. Harward then acting director of public Instruction:
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"While congratulating you on your success and the great aid you have now obtained towards gaining
an education such as falls to the lot of few among your countrymen, I roust not neglect to warn you against the
many temptations you will meet with at the University. You will, Itrust, steer clear of all these and take every
advantage of opportunity-afforded bt the generosity of the, Government.
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From the accounts given by the Dean of Merton College; Oxford and many others it was evident young Kumarakulasinghe
followed Mr. Harward's advice lead a very exemplary life. The Rev. W. Bradfield, Wesleyan Minister, Merton, thus
wrote on September 5th 1900, to Mudliar K. C. B. Kumaraku1singhe, of Chellam who had grown in, grace and wisdom
and in 'favour with God and man.
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"As the superintendent Minister of the Oxford Circuit I am charged with the pastoral oversight
of Methodists, who come to this University. And so when your brother came to Merton College' in October, I had
the pleasure of welcoming him to a Society class for University men which is held at my house on Fridays. He attended
the class regularly and also joined a Mission Band of his fellow members and assisted them in evangelistic work
in the city and in the villages round about. He won the sincere affection and esteem of us all,. By his unfailing
geniality and, kindliness and it was a matter very deep regret to the whole class when we learned that he was'
too ill to return for the Easter term."
"Since then I have visited him' from time to time as I have been able; to get to London, and through his illness
I found always the same bright, cheerful, uncomplaining disposition and I found too a. simple piety and uaffected
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and a manifest growth in grace which was 'noticed by those about him as. well by
myself."
"It was a great personal grief to me, on returning from my, holiday to find a summons to officiate at his
funeral. When. my class. comes together again next month I know that we shall all miss him I and mourn over the
premature end of a, career that promised so much and as well as over the loss of a welcome and lovable comrade
and friend".
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The 'Rev. H Highfield, of Wesley College, Colombo refers to Chellam at Oxford in the college report for 1900:
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"One recent Wesleyite, our last Ceylon Scholar, C. B. Kumarakulasinghe, entered at Merton College,
Oxford, in October of 1899, and quickly won golden opinions from his tutors and the authorities of the College.
The senior Fellow, and Tutor, Mr. Scott, writes of his gentlemanliness and most likeable qualities arid says his
fault was that he would work to hard, The severity of the English climate tried him greatly and in April he had
a bad attack of pneumonia, which developed into rapid consumption, and he passed away in August. Whilst grieving
over what, humanly considered, is the cutting short of a most promising career, and offering his bereaved relations
ow most sympathetic condolence, we rejoice to be able to record the Christian fortitude and patience shown by him
in his illness, and the true faith in Christ expressed most clearly as the end, which is also the beginning, came."
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Chellam was a gentleman born, truly his descent was noble. None said a bad thing of him in his country, and in
England he lived and died, loved and lamented, God's gentleman.
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