In 1797, the Scottish Episcopal clergyman James Cordiner was appointed Superintendent of the Madras Military Male Orphan Asylum, established to care for the orphaned sons, aged 4-14, of European officers and soldiers. Remaining at the Asylum from June 1798 until April 1799, he became known to Frederick North, later fifth Earl of Guilford who selected him to take up the post of chaplain to the garrison at Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Cordiner served in the role until his return to Scotland in 1805.
While in Ceylon, Cordiner served as principal of all the schools on the island and delivered services at Government House. He also established schools in Colombo for Sinhalese, Tamil and European students. He made a six-month tour of the island in 1800 to report on the schools but took the time also to observe and record daily life and culture. On his return to Scotland, Cordiner edited these accounts and arranged for some of his drawings to be published, printed in two volumes as A Description of Ceylon in 1807. While the first volume focused on Cordiner’s own travels, he used the second volume to describe the 1803 British campaign against Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, the King of Kandy.