A chance discovery
Several years ago, during what was meant to be a simple service test, I typed ‘Jaffna, Ceylon’ into our catalogue, Discovery, with nothing more than idle curiosity. I was working in the Digital Services directorate at the time and wanted to understand what our users experience, by placing myself in their shoes. The plan was to go through the motions of getting a reader's ticket, taking out some records and experiencing what it is like to use the public reading rooms. I had no reason to expect anything significant other than to build empathy with our users.
During this process a record concerning ‘equal seating’ reforms in Jaffna’s schools appeared during the catalogue search. Just seeing the words ‘Jaffna’, ‘Petition’ and ‘Schools’ got me very excited, and I was intrigued to see what was in this record.
-
- From our collection
- CO 54/903/5
- Title
- Jaffna Tamils: petitions relating to introduction of 'equal seating' in schools
- Date
- 1930
The file brought together voices that, at first glance, seemed worlds apart: colonial administrators concerned with policy, village elites fiercely defending a long‑standing social order, and representatives of the so‑called ‘depressed classes’ advocating for dignity and equality. Their words circled around benches and floors, but the debate was never really about furniture. It was about hierarchy and power deeply woven into Jaffna’s social fabric.
The record I found, concerning 'equal seating' reforms. Catalogue reference: CO 54/903/5
Threads of cultural memory
I was born in England and when I was almost 6, my parents decided we would move back to Jaffna, Sri Lanka and be amongst ‘our people’. At the time, in the late 1970s, what struck me was how caste was very visibly differentiated. Separate vessels for drinking water, honorific usage in the Tamil language to address people considered to be of a different social standing, separate physical spaces when travelling, stories of forbidden love that resulted in couples being outcast from their families. I learned to treat all this as normal, even as something inside me resisted.
Seeing those same ideas articulated plainly, preserved without hesitation in an archival file, was disquieting in a way I hadn’t expected. There was also much irony in the colonial administrators addressing equality over a society they had forcibly ruled for over 130 years.
Threaded between the arguments in the record were references to a much older Tamil past: the Chola, Chera, and Pandya kingdoms, and a civilisation stretching thousands of years. I had heard these stories from childhood – oral histories held by families and elders, told many times and in many versions. To see them appear unexpectedly in a colonial document was both grounding and unsettling – that a petition about seating in schools could also carry fragments of a vast cultural lineage felt like an unexpected convergence of time and memory.
Jaffna is the northern province of Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon, under the British colonial government), where both my parents are from and where I lived from the age of 6–10 years old. I had an idyllic childhood in the first couple of years until the civil war broke out. One of the first, horrific incidents was the burning of the Jaffna Library. The library was not just an archive of Tamil language and literature but also a significant library for the whole of Sri Lanka and South Asia, holding original palm leaf manuscripts and over 97,000 books and other items.
As I spent more time with the record, the emotional weight shifted. Some days it stirred memories I had long put aside, the years shaped by conflict, loss, displacement, and silence. At moments, I wondered if I was too close to it, too implicated in its history to take this encounter further.
And yet, whenever I spoke with members of the community, something would light up inside me. Their curiosity, their memories, their openness brought back the sense of purpose that had first led me to the file.
Sharing and surprises
The impulse to move gently and collaboratively together with others led me to organise a workshop around it.
We began with a small, familiar group: alumni of Uduvil Girls’ College, each carrying her own experiences of Jaffna, of the diaspora, of what had been lost or altered by war. Uduvil Girls College is one of the oldest schools in Sri Lanka. It is an all-girls’ school that was founded in 1824 by an American missionary called Harriet Winslow, and was one of the schools at the heart of embracing caste reforms.
With the help of Dr Chloe Lee, we created a warm, welcoming space. Names handwritten in Tamil on envelopes that contained a digitised copy of the record; real plates and Sri Lankan food; soft chairs arranged in a circle. We hoped to offer comfort before introducing material that might unsettle or trigger difficult memories.
Materials laid out ready for the Unheard Voices workshop.
For many participants, it was their first time encountering this history. There was surprise that such a significant document existed in London rather than in Sri Lanka, a sense of preciousness given how much Tamil cultural memory was lost in the burning of the Jaffna Public Library, and shock that school burnings linked to caste had taken place. Two participants, who are siblings, found their great uncle’s name in the record, an unexpected link between personal and archival history that brought both pride and reflection.
As we read and discussed the document together, responses unfolded gently. Some noticed the elegance of the petitioners’ English. Others questioned colonial motivations. Many felt discomfort at the arguments opposing equal seating, arguments that echoed memories from childhood. There was anger, curiosity, sadness and surprise. This brought about a strong sense of connection: that this record, far from home, still belonged to a story the community recognised as its own.
Encountering records at the workshop.
Creativity and reflection
The project has continued to evolve from these early conversations. A full Tamil translation of the record has been completed, opening pathways for intergenerational engagement for the Tamil-speaking community across the globe. A poetry workshop invited creative responses shaped not by analysis but by emotion, memory, and reclamation. There is material to start developing a soundscape featuring female Tamil voices, reading aloud sections of a historically male‑authored record to reflect the community’s presence within the archive.
Working with this single document and various subject matter experts at The National Archives has taught me that generous access is not just about making material available. It is about recognising the emotional terrain a record inhabits, and making room carefully and ethically for people to step into that terrain in their own time and on their own terms. It is about shifting authority, trusting community wisdom, and allowing interpretation to be shared rather than prescribed.
Participants in the Unheard Voices workshop mark a copy of a document together.
Unheard Voices is still taking shape and I hope the work will be taken forward by other members of the Sri Lankan community by engaging with The National Archives. Perhaps it will always be a project in motion. But even now, it has shown me what archival work can become when approached with care: a meeting place between past and present, between loss and discovery, between what was scattered and what might yet be gathered again.
Through all of this, one idea has become increasingly clear: archives stir what has been buried and hold traces of what was lost. What we do with what we find is also history in the making.
As the project draws to a close, so does my time (for now) at The National Archives, as I move onto pastures new. Of all the experiences I take away from my time here, this one has been the most precious and memorable. It has also been incredibly painful, as it opened up wounds I never knew I was carrying in the first place. This is not a bad thing, but a very good thing, because I walk away knowing that these wounds may not fully heal but do need to be tended to, and I believe that embarking on this project is just the beginning of this process for me.
Acknowledgements
I remain forever grateful to Linda Dodd and Chloe Lee for their mentorship and wholehearted support with this project and my good friend Joana Laws.
I would also like to thank the following at The National Archives for their advice, help and encouragement: Jessica Lutkin; Natalie Brown; Sonia Ranade; Kirsten Arnold; Ben Olisanekwu; Andre Santos; Liz Haines; Iqbal Singh; Giorgia Tolfo; Thomas Brown; Isobel Falk; and Olivia Gecseg.
Finally, my eternal gratitude to members from the wonderful Sri Lankan community who have been very generous with their time, ideas and participation: Shevanthie Goonesekara; Shiranee Mills; Shash Trevett; Nirmala Rajasingam; Ragavan Rajeshkumar; Hari Rajaledchumy, Dharuni Nithiananthan; Poornima Janaka; Jamuna Selvakumaran; Melanie Rajaratnam; Chithra Atta; and Dr K.E. Chandrapal.
