Edwin Wijeyeratne

Sir Edwin Aloysius Perera Wijeyeratne , KBE ( Sinhala ශ්‍රිමත් එඩ්වින් ඇලෝසියස් පෙරේරා විජයරත්න , born January 8, 1889 , died October 19, 1968 ) was a Sri Lankan politician, diplomat and one of the founding members of the United National Party . He was a Senator in the Senate of Ceylon and Cabinet Minister for Internal Affairs and Agricultural Development in the government of Don Stephen Senanayake .

youth

Edwin Wijeyeratne von Buddenipola Walauwa (Manor), Kegalle was born on January 8, 1889 in Rambukkana, Sri Lanka . He was the eldest son of Gabrial Perera Wijeyeratne , a notary public . The family came from the city of Kotte . His mother, Catherina Wickremasinghe Jayasekera Tennekoon , was the daughter of Jayasekera Tennekoon, a well-known notary of the Four Korales in Kegalle. The family came to Kegalle at the beginning of the 16th century on the run from the Portuguese and was always closely associated with the Walauwes of Kotte, Madapatha and Matara .

education

Wijeyeratne began his school career in the village school in Rambukkana. At the age of nine he moved to the Handessa Village School in Gampola , where he lived with the family of his future wife, Leela Pethiyagoda. He also attended St Mary's College , Kegalle, before completing his studies at St Joseph's College, Colombo , where he passed the Cambridge Senior Exam with Honors. He won 15 prizes in the last school competition. After leaving school, he taught at Lorenz Tutory while he tried his hand at being a journalist . He received support from Armand de Souza , one of the most influential editors of the time. He later went to law college and qualified as a lawyer in 1929.

Edwin Wijeyeratne with Jawaharlal Nehru , the first Prime Minister of India .

Career

Edwin Wijeyeratne built up a large legal practice in a short time and was considered an expert on civil law and Kandyan law , as well as on Buddhist religious law. He joined the State Council for Kegalle in 1931 and was a member there until 1936. He could not be run for re-election and practiced as a lawyer again from 1936 to 1947.

politics

During his early days in journalism, Wijeyeratne became political secretary to Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan and was one of the co-founders of a political group, the Young Lanka League . He was an important mastermind in the struggle for Ceylon’s independence and was imprisoned by the British Colonial Government with hundreds of other Ceylonese during the uprising of 1915.

Wijeyeratne was also one of the co-founders of the Ceylon National Congress when Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam and Sir James Peiris launched it. During the British colonial era, when Herwald Ramsbotham, Lord Soulburys Commissioners, were on their way to Kandy , Don Stephen Senanayake put him half-naked in a rice field near Kegalle. There he was introduced to the Commissioners as a typical Sinhala farmer who spoke to the Commissioners in English and made a lasting impression on them by promoting the need for an independent government in Ceylon. At the same time an invitation came from Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian Congress to visit India to discuss the independence of Ceylon. Wijeyeratne, Senanayake, George E. De Silva , Junius Richard Jayewardene , Sir Claude Corea and Henry Woodward Amarasuriya were among the delegates.

On December 21, 1940, Wijeyeratne was named President of the Ceylon National Congress. With him, Dudley Senanayake and Junius Richard Jayawardene were appointed Joint Secretaries . He also led the Ceylon National Congress delegation to London. In 1947 Wijeyeratne was appointed senator , at that time a non-elected upper house of parliament. There he took on the role of acting leader (managing director?). He was then appointed to the post of Sir Oliver Goonetilleke as Cabinet Minister of Home Affairs and Rural Development in the Senanayake government (July 1948). In the Commission on the Death Penalty , he was one of the first to recommend abolishing the death penalty in Ceylon (1958). In the office of Cabinet Minister, Wijeyeratne was also the chairman of the election committee for the national anthem of Sri Lanka, Namo, Namo, Matha .

Leela Wijeyeratne with the Governor-General Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke .

diplomat

Wijeyeratne was appointed High Commissioner of Ceylon in Britain in 1951 . In 1953 he was appointed Knight Commander of the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire by Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his services to the Commonwealth. As Ceylon High Commissioner, Wijeyeratne was committed to the development of diplomatic relations between Britain and Sri Lanka. Wijeyeratne was visited three times in her residence in London by the Queen and Prince Philip . In 1954 Wijeyeratne was appointed Ceylon High Commissioner for India. During this term of office he represented Ceylon at the coronation of the King of Nepal .

family

Wijeyeratne married Leela Pethiyagoda from Meewaladeniya Walauwa, Gampola, and with her he had three sons and a daughter. The oldest, Tissa Wijeyeratne , became a barrister and served as Additional Secretary for the Ministry of External Affairs and Defense , as Ambassador to France and Switzerland and as Senior Advisor, Foreign Affairs to Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike . His second son, Nissanka Wijeyeratne , was Cabinet Minister of Education, Higher Education and Justice , Diyawadana Nilame (lay custodian) of Sri Dalada Maligawa and later Ambassador to the Soviet Union and member of the UNESCO Executive Council . The youngest son, Cuda Wijeyeratne, is a psychiatrist .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ SORTING DIPLOMATS FROM THE OFFICER . Daily News (Sri Lanka), Retrieved on May 20, 2013.
2. ↑ ^{a b} An illustrious son of Sabaragamuwa .
3. ↑ Sri Lanka: The Untold Story ( Memento of the original from August 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Tissa Wijeyeratne to illustrious son of Lanka by Ajith Samaranayake . Sunday Observer.
5. ^ Independence of 1948 resurrected and revived . Sunday Observer.
6. ↑ National flag unites all communities . Sunday Observer.
7. ^ History of Sri Lanka's National Anthem mired in controversy . Daily Mirror.
8. ↑ Wikileaks . Wikileaks.

literature

• KM De Silva, WH Wriggins: JR Jayawardene of Sri Lanka: a political biography. University of Hawaii Press 1988. ISBN 0824811836
• Alfred Jeyaratnam Wilson: The Break-up of Sri Lanka: the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict. 1988. ISBN 1-85065-033-0

Web links

• The Wijeyeratne Ancestry
• Sorting Diplomats from the Officers . Daily News.