Hector MacDonald - Ceylon: Scandal and Suicide

Ceylon: Scandal and Suicide

Historian Ronald Hyam comments that "Ceylon furnished MacDonald with a lethal combination of a military command which was inactive and uninteresting, and a community of boys who were interesting and very active." He ruffled the feathers of the civilians by forcing the unkempt and ill-disciplined local militia, most of them the sons of British planters, to show more spit and polish; he deeply offended the Governor, Sir Joseph West Ridgeway, when he yelled at him to get off the parade ground; and compounded the process of alienation by declining the social invitations of the British community and consorting instead with the locals. Rumours began circulating that he was having a sexual relationship with the two teenage sons of a Burgher named De Saram, and that he was patronising a "dubious club" attended by British and Sinhalese youths. Matters came to a crisis when a tea-planter informed Ridgeway that he had surprised Sir Hector in a railway carriage with four Sinhalese boys; further allegations followed from other prominent members of the colonial establishment, with the threat of even more to come, involving up to seventy witnesses. Ridgeway advised MacDonald to return to London, his main concern being to avoid a massive scandal: "Some, indeed most, of his victims ... are the sons of the best-known men in the Colony, English and native", he wrote, noting that he had persuaded the local press to keep quiet in hopes that "no more mud" would be stirred up.

In London MacDonald "was probably told by the king that the best thing he could do was to shoot himself". Lord Roberts, now Commander-in-Chief of the Army, advised him to go back to Ceylon and face a court martial to clear his name. (There was no question of a criminal trial as MacDonald's alleged offence was not illegal in Ceylon.) MacDonald left London for Ceylon. Meanwhile Ridgeway, coming under increasing pressure in the Legislature, revealed that "serious charges" had been laid and that the General was returning to a court martial. MacDonald, reading this in the morning newspaper over breakfast in his hotel in Paris, returned to his room and shot himself.