Michael Roberts
Chandra Schaffter discovered a short note of commendation provided as a school leaving certificate in 1902 by Warden Stone of S. Thomas College at Mutwal to young DS Senanayake. Apparently, DS had been “irreproachable” in his schooldays and had even been a Dormitory Prefect.
Such an item would not have been unique … but it is one of those historical artefacts that is so common that they merge into the wastelands of mundane taken-for-granted facts ………….. and disappear from sight.
Though young Don Stephen Senanayake played cricket for S. Thomas, few contemporaries would have anticipated the heights of achievement that he carved out for himself in the service of his country many decades later. As the youngest of three brothers, in fact, DS would have been working initially within the shadow of his elder brother, FR Senanayake, in both the temperance movement,** the Ceylon Reform League of 1917-20** and the Ceylon National Congress in the 1920s. **
FR Senanayake (1882-1926) went on to secure a BA at Downing College in Cambridge University and became a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn. These skills meant that FR was in the frontlines of political agitation mounted by the vocal Ceylonese bourgeoisie in opposition to the British Raj. Colombo was the epicentre of these political manoeuvres.
Within the city the Orient Club was the spot which served as a locale for political scheming amidst its services as a popular point for middle-class recreation (billiards, cards, bar, etc) etc.
FR Senanayake’s untimely death from appendicitis on 1st January 1926 during a visit to Buddhagaya opened the paths for Dudley Senanayake to become one of Ceylon’s leading political figures. But DS was by no means a nonentity in the 1910s and 1920s before FR passed away. His capacities and background of agricultural expertise were also displayed in the proceedings of the Land Commission set up by the Second Legislative Council in the mid-1920s. It was in the State Council of the 1930s and 1940s that his grounded sagacity had a bearing on the challenges to the British Raj –initially behind Baron Jayatilaka and, then, in the 1940s with the support and acumen of OE Goonetilleka and Ivor Jennings at his side.
S. Thomas’ College at Mutwal and Warden Stone [PIX MISSING]
The little historical artifact unearthed by Chandra Schaffter marks a common practice among the headmasters of that era and subsequent decades. The imprint of their support launched many a career. But one should note that the “school by the sea” was then beside the sea at Mutwal and not at Mount Lavinia. In the 1900s Mutwal was still a salubrious upper-class residential arena …or mostly so. …. And Mount Lavinia was outside the precincts of the city of Colombo.
Dudley & His brother in the S. Thomas College cricket team with the touring St. Peter’s College, team fromAdelaide in Australia in 1929(?)
DS Senanayake is not known to have excelled in his studies; but he played cricket for S. Thomas’ and then went on to become an influential member of the Sinhalese Sports Club – another spot where the intricacies of cricket, billiards and bridge were intermixed with political intrigues directed at British rule.
It is not surprising, therefore, that DS Senanayake’s two sons, Dudley and Stanley played cricket for the “school by the sea’ in the late 1920s and then went onto become stalwarts in the boardroom of the SSC as well as the central bodies steering Ceylon’s cricket. While Dudley became a Prime Minister, Robert Senanayake went on to play for Cambridge University and then headed the Board of Control for Ceylon Cricket for twenty years.
DS Senanayake in centre &
OEG on his left …in London taking the struggle for independence to its heartland
A NOTE: the two asterisk mark spots for photographic ‘inclusions’ that are being south
