Uditha Devapriya, whose chosen title for the TALK at S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia on 7 February 2026 was “Origins, Transformation, and Parallels” … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Members of the Audience.
Good evening. I am gratified to be here with you and am grateful to everyone – and I mean everyone – who made this book possible. Thank you, Sidath[1], for remembering our friendship and our work together. I could not have asked for a better team to coordinate everything, and I suspect I never will. Thank you also, Professor Sandagomi[2], for identifying the points in the book which interested and intrigued you thoroughly.
An author is the worst person in the world to make a speech about books he or she has written. As such I shall refrain from reflecting on the publication.
Instead, I shall reflect on three things.
The first is a personal story. The second is a bit of academic mumbo-jumbo. The third, an anecdote which I think has a bearing on why we are here today.
First, the personal story. You can call it an origin story.
Somewhere in September or October 2020, I received two messages from two people. Both were schoolboys, both came from the same school, both were boarded at the same hostel, and both had known each other for more than five years.
First two research assistants – Nimsara and Uthpala
Until they messaged me, I did not know who they were. They fired off some questions to me. The questions, to the best of my knowledge, had to do with two historical articles I had written to the Daily Mirror at the time, one on Kasyapa and Sigiriya and the other on Weera Puran Appu and the 1848 Rebellion.
Soon these two messages became one, and they transformed into a question. “Can we meet you? We want to discuss some history and archaeology ideas.”
To this day, I am not sure whether these messages were preplanned or whether they formed part of a conspiracy. All I know is that six months later, once the fires of the Brandix Covid-19 cluster had died down, they met me. They were quite unlike the usual calibre of people I met at the time. They were interested in art. They were interested in culture. They were interested in history. But more than anything, they were interested in colonial history.
This was in 2020. In 2022, they did their A Levels. In 2023, they finished their A Levels.
In 2023 I got involved in several historical research projects. At the time I was about to finish work as a research assistant to a prominent historian. Having done my work there, I was on the lookout for two research assistants of my own.
On a research trip in Jaffna, 2023
By this point those two young men had grown up. They left school and then became appointed as Senior Prefects there. One of them ended up as the head of the archives committee at the school.
So, I did what anyone desperate for cheap intellectual labour would done. I hired them. When doing so, I promised them the sun, the moon, and everything else.
When I began work as an assistant to that very reputed historian, I had been told, “It’s not easy working for him. It’s like working for a slave driver.” For better or worse, in working for him, I myself had become a slave driver. Now it was someone else’s fate to be the slave.
Over the next few months, my projects took us from Colombo to Jaffna to Kandy. We spent three days at Trinity College, Kandy, and three more days at St John’s College, Jaffna. We spent a few hours at the Ladies’ College Archives, then ran off to the National Archives and National Library. I remember that day distinctly: I had to pull one of them from Ladies’ to walk to the other side of the road towards the Archives.
In-between these many adventures and misadventures, we had several conversations. Being two fervent students and prefects from their school, they were boastful about their school being the best in every respect, and did not mince words with me. Though I begged to differ with them, they engaged me in these conversations.
It was because of these conversations that I began to study and seriously reflect on school histories – a subject which, in the wider context of colonial and modern history in Sri Lanka, has yet to be given serious consideration to, by researchers in the field.
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That’s the origin story. Now on to the mumbo-jumbo. Writing the history of a school is not easy. At times one feels it is impossible. There are narratives, individuals, and incidents which get inflated or underreported. In Sri Lanka, professional historians do not seem to have engaged in this subject as much as they should. In other countries, the situation is very different.
Over the last few years, we have seen a slew of coffee table books and serious historical accounts of leading public institutions in Sri Lanka, all written by sharp-minded, candid, and intrepid writers. Among them have been my good friend Avishka Mario Seneviratne, who is not with us in this room today, and Mr Richard Simon, who is.
But they remain the exception, and I remain grateful to them for raising awareness of what should be a thoroughly researched field.
This begs a question. Why are school histories important?
There are three aspects to such institutions which explain why they are. The first lies in the origins of these institutions. This includes the aims for which they were established and whether or not these objectives aligned with the prevalent social attitudes and aspirations of the day.
Bust of Bishop James Chapman. Photo by Dimitri Crusz.
“My great object now is the establishment of a native College for the systematic training of a native ministry. I am persuaded that we shall make but little progress among the native population without a native agency, well taught and well disciplined… The quietest people in the Empire have been provoked into outbreaks, childish in their effort, and futile in their result… But a change must come soon, or retributive measure must be ours.” ……
Memorials of James Chapman, First Bishop of Colombo, With a Prefatory Letter from the Rt Rev Richard Dunford, Lord Bishop of Chichester (Vijitha Yapa, Colombo, 2018), p 51
The second lies in the transformations these schools underwent long after they were formed. No school stays the same forever, and no school can be insulated from the currents of social change and history. There are contributions they make to the page-turning events of their day. It can be, for instance, something as small as a job interview.
As a child Ediriweera Sarachchandra had passed through several schools, including S. Thomas’. After returning from Santiniketan in India, he sent a number of applications, hoping to find a job as a teacher.
In his memoirs Sarachchandra recalls being invited to two interviews. The first had been at Royal College. Rather unwisely, he had decided to wear a dhoti for the occasion. “I did not get the appointment. A few days later a friend who was teaching there told me why. Apparently the Principal had not liked the way I was dressed at the interview.”
Some time later, the then Warden, R. S. de Saram, had called him to S. Thomas’. “[De Saram] expressed much sympathy for my dilemma. He told me that he could not give me a permanent appointment. So he offered me a temporary one.”
It may have helped that Sarachchandra had been an Old Thomian, though in his memoirs he does not recollect his time at College with much affection. It may also have helped that, for his second interview, he chose not to wear his dhoti.
From my book, citing Ediriweera Sarachchandra, Pin Athi Sarasavi Varamak Denne (Sikuru Prakashakayo, Colombo, 2010), pp 86-87
The third lies in the parallels between the changes that are taking place at these schools and the developments taking place outside, and how these parallel lines converge.
Here, my interest has mainly been in how elite institutions have responded to, rejected, or absorbed the social and cultural developments that took place after independence. In this, S. Thomas’ College has been as responsive as have other schools – though as I have tried to show in this book, that response has never been static or uniform.
EXHIBIT A:
In 1951, the Minister of Education, E. A. Nugawela, noted that since Kannangara’s proposals, “the Royal College is no more a school for the rich and privileged classes.” Observing that 317 of 519 parents worked as “peons, labourers, chauffeurs, and so on”, he concluded that the school had opened its gates to “the lower-middle class.” Such a trend could not be averted, much less reversed, in the context of post-independence Sri Lanka.
“The history of a hostel; the sociology of a school” …. The Island (2 July 2022)
EXHIBIT B:
“There is plenty to worry about in the school under the present condition. Whereas the standard of English is going down steadily, and perhaps inevitably, the standard of Sinhalese is not as yet going up correspondingly. The present generation of boys seem to be deficient on both sides, and the task of the teacher is more arduous than ever before.” ……………Letter from R. L. Hayman to Martin Wickramasinghe, 27 July 1956
EXHIBIT C:
“In Ceylon, where the most popular film is ‘Kele Handa’ and ‘Seda Sulang’, or among the more educated classes where the utmost in cinema is Alfred Hitchcock or in music Louis Armstrong; where one finds all the defects of Western civilisation and more… ‘we cannot speak, with truth, of a cultural revival’.” ……….“Editorial”, S. Thomas’ College Magazine (September 1956), p 8
Taken together, it is these three areas – origins, transformations, and parallels – that has provided for me a methodology and a structure with which to examine the histories of these institutions, and more importantly, their relevance then and now. ……………………………………………………
That’s the mumbo-jumbo. I would like to end with a little anecdote, which as I said has some probable bearing on why we are here today.
This happened five or six months ago at a book launch in some hotel. I was sitting with two of my other research assistants and we were waiting for the event to begin. The book launch went well and ended on time. The refreshments were on, and we helped ourselves. A prominent historian made his way to our table. He asked after me and after my two assistants. Having introduced ourselves, they engaged in conversation.
I was talking with another friend. After a few minutes I returned to the three of them.
The historian had asked a question. “What is the most important thing in life for you?”
One of the assistants replied, “Happiness.” The historian raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
Then he turned to the other boy. Perhaps intimidated by his friend’s response, he replied: “Excellence.” Convinced that he had given the right answer, he smiled at the historian.
The historian considered these two responses, and then gave his verdict. “Excellence will give you the foundation to go everywhere. But without happiness as your goal in life, it will get you nowhere.”
Ladies and gentlemen, as we celebrate 175 years of an institution, and as we reflect on how we should celebrate and the foundation we should lay for institutions like so, perhaps that is a lesson we can all take to heart: that at the core of schools with long histories should be a constant balance, always, between a striving for excellence and a striving for happiness.
Thank you.
[1] Sidath Gajanayaka, Co-Chair of the book Editorial Committee
[2] Sandagomi Coperahewa delivered the review speech
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