Wilson Tea Story
1807

My Grandmother’s family (Blackett) first arrived in Ceylon with the Royal Artillery at the North/Eastern port of Trincomalee in 1807 and they marched down to Colombo where the British army were based. He was called John and he brought his wife Jane and their young four year old daughter with him. In 1808 they had a son called James Blackett senior to differentiate him from a future James. Unfortunately we know that on 28th. October 1809 he had died or been killed.
It was a time of many confrontations with the Sinhalese in sweltering jungle areas and the central hills where the tea is now cultivated, was clothed in rain forest jungle with small village settlements dotted around Kandy where the King had set-up his final palace having retreated from the invasions of the Tamils in the North to several places setting up his palace each time. Young James grew up and we believe he was involved in helping to open communications, roads, bridges and possibly even involved in the railway later. Due to intermarriage by the Sinhalese Kings with princesses from Southern India much rivalry surfaced and the Kingdom disintegrated through several acts of treason by his Ministers which drove the last King Sri Wickreme Rajasingha to become extremely cruel and rule as a despot.
1815

1848

1887
Robert and Charles Wilson arrived in Ceylon from England. Robert was billeted with Walter Blackett on Pen-Y-Lan to (creep = learn Tamil & tea planting) whilst Charles was billeted on Doteloya again to creep (a creeper is a young planter learning to be a qualified planter).
The Blackett family had 3 excellent estates and it now seems that James Blackett added a small estate Lapallagalla and another small estate Alakadeniya probably to Penylan Upper and Lower. Finally, he also added half of a large estate named Moorootie to Doteloya and the other half of this abandoned coffee estate went to Kellie estate. These fascinating often forgotten details took place at a time when the island was in turmoil from the disastrous decline from Coffee that was wiped out as an estate crop and tea took its place.
Through this Robert, met and married Alice (Walter Scott Blackett’s sister) and it seems that Robert Wilson inherited Meddegodde as part of marrying Alice and part for his help to the family in the tea era. Robert and Alice had six sons, one of whom was Roy born in August 1905 at Meddegodde estate (my father).
Robert visited England several times around the time of the 1st. WW taking a farm at Wrington for his wife who had cancer and placing the boys at Blundell’s in Devon. Then learning that his eldest son Douglas had been killed in the last month of the war and that his body could not be found, this totally devastated him. Next his right arm became caught in the farm circular saw with the farm manager and staff managing to insert his stump into a barrel of boiling pitch whilst the district nurse arrived and the doctor hurried with pony & trap to sew him up. After his visits to England Robert decided England had changed and he would never return. He set about making Meddegodde his settled home with huge bird aviaries on three sides of the bungalow that he built in 1895 plus a small herd of cows, two bulls numerous ex racehorses, a deer park and a croquet lawn where tea was served at 4 P.M. He had a hammock erected under a huge mango tree in the front of the bungalow. He and his family had been farming in England before he went to Ceylon and they were all involved in showing thoroughbred stallions which won them a total of 36 Kings & Queens premium winners. Robert continued riding with one arm until 78 years of age.
1939

1948

2000+