Galle Photo Album #7 – Small, Mendis, & Darrell

Rev. W.J.T.Small aged about 92 at a gathering of the Galle Astronomical Association, All Saints' Anglican Church, Galle Fort. Rev. Small was a Cambridge mathematics "wrangler" and a keen amateur astronomer whose expertise was highly respected by, among others, Arthur C. Clarke. [Photographer unknown, taken circa 1975.]

Lionel Mendis, brother of the historian George Mendis, who had a profound influence on Rev. W.J.T. Small's thinking about the symbiotic relationship between Ceylonese Nationalism and Christianity. Lionel taught briefly at Richmond College, but had to give up plans to join the Methodist Ministry when he contracted leprosy. He died in his early 30s, during Small's tenure at Richmond, and Small wrote a fine tribute to him under the title: A Christian Nationalist. After Lionel Mendis' death, Small wrote that his spiritual friendship with him had bound him forever to Ceylon and her people.

J.H. Darrell, Small's immediate predecessor as Principal at Richmond College. A hard worker and dedicated teacher, he helped nurse College Hostel boarders during a typhoid (enteric) epidemic in 1906, directly leading to his own death on July 12th of that year.