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The Burgher Elite and the British Raj-by Michael Roberts George F Nell, Louis Nell, C. A. Lorenz,  James Alwis and Charles Ferdinands moving anti-clockwise Source:Thuppahis Preamble:[1] In locating the Burghers in ‘social space’ the book People Inbetween deploys statistical detail, text and quotation to place them within the Ceylonese middle class of British Ceylon.[2] The socio-political clout which accrued to the Burgher segment of the middle class is further illustrated by indicating the complex ways in which they fulfilled intermediary roles between the mass of the people and the British rulers and/or between powerful segments of the majority community, the Sinhalese. The extract printed below is a section of Chapter 6 [in People Inbetween] devoted to this purpose and is reproduced without citations. The best known of the intermediaries in the British Raj, of course, were the headmen, whether the cohorts of lower-echelon headmen or the top layers represented by the maniagars, ratēmahatmayas, and mudaliyars. In the low-country districts the latter were ...