SirPaul Edward Pieris Deraniyagala Samarasinha Sriwardhana, CMG (16 February 1874 – 1959; commonly known as Sir Paul E. Pieris) was a Ceylonese civil servant and historian. He served as Ceylon's Trade Commissioner and a District Judge[1] and held multiple appointments as president of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka. Although his academic and early career was in the legal field, he is best known for being one of the country's foremost experts on the history of European occupation of Sri Lanka.
Born to John Martinus Pieris Sriwardhana and Don Johannes Dias Bandaranaike, Pieris was educated at S. Thomas' College, Mutwal and in 1889 was judged the most successful candidate at the Cambridge Local Junior Examination in the under-sixteen group, passing out in the first division with distinctions in English, Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Botany, and Drawing. In 1890, he repeated his former success with distinctions in several subjects, including Religious Knowledge, and in the following year, again, with five distinctions.[citation needed]
In 1896, he was selected to the Ceylon Civil Service and served until his retirement in 1935. Following his cadetship, he served as the office assistant to the Government Agent of the Southern Province. He had served mostly as a District Judge in the towns of Matara, Kegalle, Kandy and Kalutara. During his tenure as District Judge of Kandy, in 1914 he preceded over the Gampola Perahera Case filled by a Basnayake Nilame. Pieris's judgement was referred to the Supreme Court of Ceylon by the Attorney General and was set aside eventually leading to the 1915 riots.[3] He served as Trade Commissioner for Ceylon in Britain and thereafter appointed the first Public Trustee of Ceylon, from which he retired in 1935.[1][4][2]
It has been remarked that Pieris was never given a position in the Civil Service that was commensurate with his intellect and ability, and as such he turned his attention toward in depth historical research on the European occupation in Ceylon from the 16th Century onwards. Pieris carried out extensive historical research in Ceylon and he was several times elected the president of the Royal Asiatic Society of Ceylon having last held the role from 1932 to 1934.[5] to whose journal he contributed frequently from 1904 to 1948. He further single-handedly edited the journal during the years of World War II when the society's functions were greatly disrupted by external factors.[citation needed]
