1 Rupee Ragama; PoW Camp

Ragama, north of Colombo, held Boer prisoners captured during the South African War — one of several camps the British established in Ceylon as a way of keeping prisoners far from any possible rescue or escape back to the front. This note was issued for internal camp use, part of a controlled scrip economy designed to let prisoners purchase canteen goods without handling standard currency that might facilitate escape attempts or be smuggled out.

Ceylon's PoW camp issues are among the rarest of all British colonial internment scrip. The Campbell reference alone places it — almost nothing else about surviving quantities or redemption is documented with certainty.