Saga of Royal College: Some clarifications

I consider it my duty to clarify some of the facts presented by D.S. Sivapragasm, in his article in The Sunday Times of March 25 titled ‘One of the best batches of the best school’. The inception of Royal College was in 1835, not in 1855. Royal was founded by Rev. Joseph Marsh, not by the British colonial government. The first Headmaster was Rev. Joseph Marsh, not Rev. Dr. Barcroft Boake.

Most importantly Royal College was not established for the education of the sons of the British, but upon a petition by some locals in Pettah who wanted the Governor to establish a permanent government school.

Royal College has been the alma mater of many great personalities, not only of European descent but also of the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities. When R.F. Morgan, later a Queen’s Advocate was leaving the Colombo Academy, James De Alwis, later an eminent Sinhala scholar was being moulded at the academy in 1839. Anagarika Dharmapala and Ponnambalam Ramanathan are among the many great personalities produced by Royal College. All of them irrespective of their religion or social status fought together for the upliftment of Royal College.

I would like to bring to the notice of the readers that Royal has been producing the cream of the youth of Sri Lanka each year. The number of doctors, engineers (in which category my father too would be counted), lawyers, diplomats, businessmen, journalists and leaders in many other professions produced by Royal College throughout its history of 172 years is immense. The counting is not over yet.

Royal still produces the best results at exams. As Mr. Sivapragasm has said the 1949 group would have consisted of great people but it should be noted that every batch of Royal has had the best people of the time.

By Akbo Rupasinghe, Malabe.