PAULINA PICKEIRNG 1821 – 1904

The following is George Hayley’s account of the scheme, extracted from

A Short History of the Hayley Companies in Ceylon

by George G. Hayley

“It was all so simple. We would form a new company with whatever small capital we could jointly raise, taking shares in proportion to our H&K Ltd (Hayley and Kenny) commission entitlement. We would bid the shareholders Rs. 4.5 million for the entire undertaking in Colombo and Galle, this sum half in cash and half in paper, secured in some way on the new Company’s assets. The cash we would find largely by liquidating Hayley and Kenny Ltd and thereby under the Income Tax law of that time, saving one year’s complete taxes, the choice would be ours out of the company’s last three fiscal years. We would do all this early in the next financial year, 1952/53, and the old shareholders would receive no dividends in respect of 1951/52, the profits of which would provide the balance of the cash we needed and of course, the whole of the Rs 4.5 million would be tax-free in their hands as in those days there was no Capital Gains Tax. It was by the values of those times a marvellous package for them and I had little doubt that they would all ultimately accept, though clearly long and tricky negotiations lay ahead.”

Hayley accomplished the tricky negotiations with the trustees and Hayleys Ltd came into being on May 31, 1952.

This coin, the second in the series, features the Percy Douglas, a three-masted ship named after Major General Sir Robert Percy Douglas, then Lieutenant Governor of Jersey. Although the Percy Douglas was built in Beaumont, Jersey by Edward Allen, it was registered in Liverpool to Thomas Hayley to whom the ship was awarded when Edward Allen went bankrupt. Registered as 781 tons and launched on 8 August 1861, the Percy Douglas worked the China routes until 14 December 1871 when it was finally wrecked after running aground off Rangoon, India.

In 1869, Thomas Hayley made an important voyage on the Percy Douglas accompanied by his son Charles Pickering Hayley. The journey was part of Charles’s coming of age celebrations and his half-sisters Julia and Adelaide sailed with them, making the lengthy trip past the Cape of Good Hope before reaching the scenic port of Galle. They disembarked at Galle and family history has it that Charles so liked what he saw of the sleepy seaport that he may have well decided to return and make his fortune there. Source: http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/articles/percy_douglas.htm

Note from Pamela Collins

Paulina Pickeirng married Thomas Hayley, a ship owner. The ‘family- search’ website Individual Record shows the date of their marriage as 31st Oct 1844. They lived at St Peter, Jersey. The Jersey census for 1851 and 1871 shows Paulina was born in 1821 in England. Their children are Charles P (Pickering) Hayley, Frederick C, Elina E and Alfred H and there are also children from a possible first marriage. “