This article refers to the political activist. For the Rear Admiral see Leighton Seymour Bracegirdle. For the fictional family of Hobbits see Bracegirdle. Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle (10 September 1912 – 22 June 1999) was a British-born Australian Marxist revolutionary who played a key role in the Sri Lankan independence movement. He was one of the handful of European Radicals in Sri Lanka. He is most known for initiating the Bracegirdle Incident. Early life Bracegirdle was born in Chelsea, to Ina Marjorie Lyster and James Seymour Bracegirdle, and was educated in Kennington. He emigrated to Australia with his mother, a suffragette who had been active in the Labour Party and a candidate in 1925 for the Holborn borough. He studied art at a Sydney art school and trained as a farmer in the outback. In about 1935 he joined the Australian Young Communist League (YCL). In Ceylon In 1936 he sailed on the SS Bendigo for Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known). He began 'creeping' (i.e., learning the trade of tea-planting) on Relugas estate in Madulkelle near Matale. Bracegirdle was working among the Tamil plantation labourers ('coolies'), who were treated poorly, receiving very little health care, even less education and living in 'line rooms' which were worse than cattle sheds in England. Militancy among these workers was increasing. He was dismissed for fraternising with the workers and for taking their side in labour disputes. He joined the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP). On 28 November 1936, at a meeting in Colombo, the president of the party, Dr Colvin R. de Silva, introduced him, saying: 'This is the first time a white comrade has ever attended a party meeting held at a street corner.' He made his first public speech in Sri Lanka, warning that the capitalists were trying to split the workers of Sri Lanka and pit one against the other. He took an active part in organising a public meeting on Galle Face Green in Colombo on 10 January 1937 to celebrate Sir Herbert Dowbiggin's departure from the island. It was called by the LSSP to protest against the atrocities claimed to have been committed during Dowbiggin's long tenure as Inspector General of Police, particularly during the 1915 riots. In March, he was co-opted to serve on the executive committee. He was employed by K. Natesa Iyer, Member of the State Council for the Hatton constituency, to 'organise