British Ceylon
British colony
← 1815–1948 →
Flag
Anthem God Save The King
Capital	Colombo
Language(s)	English (Official), Sinhala & Tamil
Government	Monarchy
British Monarch
- 1815-1820	George III
- 1820-1830	George IV
- 1830-1837	William IV
- 1837-1901	Victoria
- 1901-1910	Edward VII
- 1910-1936	George V
- 1936	Edward VIII
- 1936-1948	George VI
Governor of Ceylon
- 1798-1805	Frederick North
- 1805-1811	Thomas Maitland
- 1812-1820	Robert Brownrigg
- 1944-1948	Henry Monck-Mason Moore
Prime minister
- 1947-1948	Don Stephen Senanayake
Legislature	Legislative Council of Ceylon (1833-1931) State Council of Ceylon (1931-1947)
Historical era	New Imperialism
- Kandyan Convention	March 5, 1815
- Independence	February 4, 1948
Area
- 1881	65,610 km2 (25,332 sq mi)
Population
- 1881 est.	2,759,700
Density	42.1 /km2  (108.9 /sq mi)
- 1891 est.	3,007,800
Density	45.8 /km2  (118.7 /sq mi)
- 1901 est.	3,565,900
Density	54.3 /km2  (140.8 /sq mi)
- 1931 est.	5,306,400
Density	80.9 /km2  (209.5 /sq mi)
- 1946 est.	6,657,300
Density	101.5 /km2  (262.8 /sq mi)
Currency	Ceylonese rixdollar (1815 - 1828) British pound (1825 - ?) Ceylonese Rupee

British Ceylon, known contemporaneously as Ceylon, was a British Crown colony between 1815 and 1948. The area it covered is now the island nation of Sri Lanka.

History[link]

From the Dutch to the British[link]

Before the beginning of the Dutch governance, the island of Ceylon was divided between the Portuguese Empire and the Kingdom of Kandy, who were in the midst of a war for control of the island as a whole. The island attracted the attention of the newly formed Batavian Republic when they were invited by the Sinhalese King to fight the Portuguese, and Dutch rule was soon imposed.

The Dutch, weakened by their wars against Great Britain, were eventually conquered by Napoleon and their leaders became refugees in London. No longer able to effectively govern the island the Dutch transferred the rule of Ceylon to the British against the will of the Dutch residing there.

Kandyan Wars[link]

As soon as Britain gained Ceylon from the Dutch they wanted to expand it by making the native (Kingdom of Kandy) a protectorate, an offer refused by the King of Kandy. Though the previous administration had not been powerful enough to threaten the reign of the Kandyan Kings, the British Empire was much more powerful. The refusal to become a protectorate lead to outright war between the two factions, which ended with the capitulation of the Kandyans in 1815.

Kandyan Convention[link]

The rule of the king Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was not favored by his chieftains. The king who was of South Indian ancestry faced powerful chieftains and sought cruel measures to repress their popularity with the people. A successful coup was organized by the Sinhala chiefs in which they accepted the British crown as their new king. This ended the line of the kingdom of Kandy and King Rajasinhe was taken as a prisoner. thought that the English will hand over the power to him.

But the English annexed Ceylon with Madras Presidency for economical and strategical reasons. The Kandyan treaty which was signed at the annexation of Kandy was called Kandyan Convention and consists of the terms under which the Kandyans will live under British rule.

The Buddhist religion was to be given protection by the Crown and Christianity would not be imposed on the unwilling masses as it happened during Portuguese and Dutch rule. It spelt the end of a most cruel tyrant who tortured Sinhala aristocracy at will in one of the most cruel ways. Kandyan Convention is an important legal document because it specifies the conditions which the British promised to rule the Kandyan territory.

Soon the Kandyans rebelled against the English and waged a guerilla war. It was called the Uva Rebellion and the British carried out the massacre of the 19th Century by wiping out the all able bodied Sinhalese men from the Hill country. Main cause of the rebellion was the authorities failure to uphold and carry out the customary Buddhist traditions which were viewed by the islanders as an integral part of their lives.

The Uva Rebellion[link]

It took the ruling families of Kandy less than two years to realise that the authority of the British government was a fundamentally different one to that of the (deposed) Nayakkar dynasty. Discontent with British activities soon boiled over into open rebellion, commencing in the duchy of Uva in 1817. Generally called the 'Uva Rebellion', it is also known as the Third Kandyan War. In many ways the third name is more appropriate, as the rebellion (which soon developed into a guerilla war of the kind the Kandyans had fought against European powers for some time) was centred on the Kandyan nobility and their unhappiness with developments under British rule since 1815. However it is the last uprising of this kind and Britain's brutal response massacred the rebels as a warning to the rest of the Sri Lankan community.

Development[link]

The laying of the railway was carried out during the Governorship of Sir Henry Ward. The opening of coffee and tea plantations, road development schemes, establishment of hospitals and maternity homes throughout the island, were some of the major works undertaken by the British who ruled Sri Lanka.

Demographics[link]

Arms used in the early stages of British rule

The multiracial of Ceylon was numerous enough to support the European colonists and the Portuguese and the Dutch offspring of the past 440 odd years of colonial history was enough to run a stable government. Unlike the previous rulers the British embarked on a plantation programme which brought coffee plantation which was later wiped out by coffee rust. Coffee plants were replaced by tea and rubber plantations. This made Ceylon one of the richest countries in Asia.

The British also brought a million Tamils from British India and made them indentured laborers in the Hill Country. This was in addition to the several hundred thousand Tamils already living in the Maritime provinces and another 30,000 Mappilla Muslims whose mother tongue is Tamil. Thus the seed of ethnic discord was sown in the British Era. The linguistically bipolar island needed a link language and English became universal in Ceylon.^[1]

Census in Celon began 1871 and continued every ten years. The Census of 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 had shown Ceylon Tamils and Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka grouped together. By 1911 Indian Tamils were shown as a separate category. The population statistics reveal that by 1911, Indian Tamils constituted 12.9 per cent, whereas Sri Lankan Tamils formed 12.8 per cent of the population of 4,106,400; in 1921, 13.4 per cent and 11.5 per cent; in 1931, 15.2 and 11.3; in 1946, 11.7 and 11.0; in 1953, 12.0 and 10.9; in 1963, 10.6 and 11.0; in 1971, 11.6 and 11.2; and in 1981, 5.5 per cent and 12.7 per cent respectively. The census show that during a large period of time in the history of Ceylon, Indian Tamils outnumbered Ceylon Tamils until between 1971 and 1981 where more than 50 per cent of the Indian Tamil population were repatriated as Indian citizens back to India. However, many Indian Tamils were also granted Sri Lankan citizenship where upon declared themselves as Sri Lankan Tamils.^[2]

Government and military[link]

British Governors of Ceylon (1796–1948)[link]

Between 1796 and 1948, Ceylon was a British crown colony. Although the British monarch was the head of state, in practice his or her functions were exercised in the colony by the colonial Governor, who acted on instructions from the British government in London.

Armed forces[link]

The Ceylon Defence Force (CDF) was the military of British Ceylon. Established in 1881 as the Ceylon Volunteers, as the military reserve in the British crown colony of Ceylon, by 1910 it grew into the Ceylon Defence Force, a regular force responsible for the defence of Ceylon. The CDF was under the command of the General Officer Commanding, Ceylon, of the British Army in Ceylon if mobilized. However mobilization could be carried out only under orders from the Governor. The Ceylon Defence Force has seen action in a number of wars such as the Second Boer War and both World Wars. It is the predecessor to the Ceylon Army.^[3]

See also[link]

• Ceylon Defence Force

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: an account of economic developments in rural Ceylon under British rule

• තුඩපත් මඟින් හෙළිවන සිංහල උරුමය