Charles Spearman

Armstrong

Charles Spearman Armstrong (1847–

1924) was an Irish-born pioneer of tea and
cinchona in British Ceylon, where he
arrived in 1863.

He was the author of Tea

Cultivation in Ceylon (1884).
Life
Armstrong was born in
Youghal, County Cork,
Ireland.[1]

In 1863, at the age of sixteen,

Tea in British Ceylon

Armstrong sailed to Ceylon, at

a time when planters there were
abandoning their plantations, due to a
collapse in coffee. By 1864, he had gained
possession of a former coffee estate
called Rookwood at Hewaheta. This lies
on a high plateau, some thirty miles from
Kandy and fifteen miles from Nuwara
Eliya. Travelling there by horse, Armstrong
found an estate of moribund coffee trees
and a log cabin. With some other young
men, he rode to Talaimannar and rowed
across the Palk Strait to India. They came
back with sacks of tea seed, and
Armstrong planted 750 acres of tea at
Rookwood. He also planted cinchona
trees.[2]

James Taylor is widely considered to be

the first man to plant tea in British Ceylon
as an agricultural enterprise, and this was
in 1867 at the Loolecondera estate near
Deltota. However, a granite monument at
Rookwood erected by his children claims
that Armstrong grew cinchona and tea
there from 1864 to 1908.[2]

Armstrong was in the habit of getting up

before dawn to work in his fields and
worked most days until after dark. At
Rookwood he built a new house and laid
out an English garden.[2] In 1875, he
gained a wife, Angelina, who had been
born in Colombo, and they had five
children.[1][2]
In 1874, Armstrong and R. W. Wickham
bought the Holmwood Estate. In 1877 he
sold his interest to Wickham.[3] From 1880
to 1884 he was the owner of an estate
called Amunamulla.[4]

In 1884, Armstrong published a book, Tea

Cultivation in Ceylon.[5] In 1891, he was a
member of the Standing Committee of the
Ceylon Tea Fund.[6]

Retirement
In 1908, Armstrong retired to England and
was succeeded at Rookwood by his son,
John Spearman Armstrong, who managed
the plantation until 1944.[2]

C. S. Armstrong and his wife settled in a

large house at West Byfleet with two of
their daughters, Mabel and Ethel, and their
son Guy Spearman Armstrong,[1] who was
killed in 1915 while serving in the Scots
Guards.[7] Armstrong died in 1924.[8]

Armstrong's grandson, Neville Armstrong,

who had been born at Rookwood in
1913,[9] had clear memories of his
grandfather in 1997. He described him as
"an introverted man who said very little.
There were no arguments, no wise
sayings, no advice given. It was a very
strict Victorian family." Physically, he
remembered "piercing blue eyes and a
large white spade beard".[2]

Notes
1. 1911 United Kingdom census, Oakhurst,
West Byfleet (https://www.ancestry.co.uk/i
mageviewer/collections/2352/images/rg14
_03009_0391_03) , ancestry.co.uk,
accessed 28 July 2021 (subscription
required)
2. Royston Ellis, Rookwood: memories of a
forgotten pioneer (https://www.sundaytime
s.lk/970907/plus10.html) , The Sunday
Times (Sri Lanka), 7 September 1997,
accessed 27 July 2021
3. John Penry Lewis, List of inscriptions on
tombstones and monuments in Ceylon
(1913), p. 374 (https://books.google.co.uk/
books?id=lWHHDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA374)
4. C. Spearman Armstrong (https://www.histo
ryofceylontea.com/tea-planters/planters-re
gistry/armstrong-c-spearman--11115434.h
tml) , historyofceylontea.com, accessed 28
July 2021
5. Charles Spearman Armstrong (http://online
books.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/look
upname?key=Armstrong%2C%20Charles%2
0Spearman) , University of Pennsylvania,
accessed 28 July 2021: “Armstrong,
Charles Spearman: Tea Cultivation in
Ceylon. (Colombo, A. M. & J. Ferguson,
[1884])”
. Ceylon Handbook and Directory (1891), p.
363
7. Woking Remembers: World War One Byfleet
War Memorial (https://www.exploringsurrey
spast.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/0
3/Byfleet_War_Memorial.pdf) ,
 exploringsurreyspast.org.uk, accessed 5
August 2021
. “Charles Spearman Armstrong, deceased”
in The London Gazette, Issue 32934, 9 May
1924, p. 3801 (https://www.thegazette.co.u
k/London/issue/32934/page/3801)
9. Ian Miller, Other lives: Neville Armstrong (htt
ps://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/se
p/26/pressandpublishing) , The Guardian,
26 September 2008, accessed 27 July 2021

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