Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
DOI
10.4038/sljss.v48i02.9220
Publication Title
Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences
Volume
48
Issue
2
Pages
121-129
Abstract
The website of the Municipal Council of Colombo asserts that it was founded in 1865 (Colombo Municipal Council, 2015). This is also the story that is recounted in scholarly histories of Colombo, in modern websites and in popular accounts of the history of the city. The objective of this article is to demonstrate that Colombo had a municipal council as early as the sixteenth century and to illuminate the story of its existence for over 70 years - until well into the seventeenth century. It also explores the functions of the council, its relationship with Portuguese officials who ruled the areas they controlled in Sri Lanka and question of whose interests were represented by this council. The article also contends that this first Municipal Council had a role in Portuguese administration that occasionally extended to policy-making on matters beyond the city.
Rights
© 2026 National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka.
This article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) License.
ORCID
0000-0002-2906-4601 (De Silva)
Original Publication Citation
de Silva, C. R. (2025). A forgotten piece of history: The story of the first Municipal Council of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences, 48(2), 121-129. https://doi.org/10.4038/sljss.v48i02.9220
Repository Citation
de Silva, Chandra Richard, "A Forgotten Piece of History: The Story of the First Municipal Council of Colombo, Sri Lanka" (2025). History Faculty Publications. 78.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/history_fac_pubs/78