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| Postmaster General of Sri Lanka | |
|---|---|
| Sri Lanka Post | |
| Formation | 1815 |
| First holder | Egbert Bletterman |
The Postmaster General of Sri Lanka is the appointed head of Sri Lanka Post, which is a government department. The current Postmaster General is Ranjith Ariyaratne.
The first mail service in Ceylon, was in 1788, established by the Dutch East India Company between Holland and Batavia via the Cape of Good Hope and Dutch Ceylon. [1] They established postal offices in the coastal trading centres of Colombo, Galle, Jaffna and Mannar. In 1795 the Dutch were expelled by the British and the Maritime Provinces were initially administered by the British East India Company. Two years later Ceylon became a Crown Colony. In 1798, a British officer, Captain Kennedy, was appointed as a competent postal authority. [2]
In 1815, following the signing of the Kandyan Convention the British took control of the entire country. They re-organised the postal service and a permanent post office was established in Colombo in 1882. The first official Post Master General of Ceylon was Egbert Bletterman, who was the PMG for the whole island. In 1817, Lewis Sansoni succeeded Bletterman as the second Postmaster General. The third Postmaster General was Major George Stewart and during his period he was instrumental in extending the postal services to major towns in the country.
The history of Sri Lanka is intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent and the surrounding regions, comprising the areas of South Asia, Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean.
Colombo is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo metropolitan area has a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 in the Municipality. It is the financial centre of the island and a tourist destination. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to the Greater Colombo area which includes Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the legislative capital of Sri Lanka, and Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia. Colombo is often referred to as the capital since Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is itself within the urban/suburban area of Colombo. It is also the administrative capital of the Western Province and the district capital of Colombo District. Colombo is a busy and vibrant city with a mixture of modern life, colonial buildings and monuments.
Burgher people, also known simply as Burghers, are a small Eurasian ethnic group in Sri Lanka descended from Portuguese, Dutch, British and other European men who settled in Ceylon and developed relationships with native Sri Lankan women. The Portuguese and Dutch had held some of the maritime provinces of the island for centuries before the advent of the British Empire. With the establishment of Ceylon as a crown colony at the end of the 18th century, most of those who retained close ties with the Netherlands departed. However, a significant community of Burghers remained and largely adopted the English language. During British rule, they occupied a highly important place in Sri Lankan social and economic life.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, in the British Crown Colony of Ceylon, the government of Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka assured the British king and his majesty's government of its continued support.
The Sri Lanka Army is the oldest and largest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. Established as the Ceylon Army in 1949, it was renamed when Sri Lanka became a republic in 1972. In 2010, the Army had approximately 200,000 regular personnel, between 20,000 and 40,000 reserve (volunteer) personnel and 18,000 National Guardsmen and comprises 13 divisions, one air-mobile brigade, one commando brigade, one special forces brigade, one independent armored brigade, three mechanized infantry brigades and over 40 infantry brigades. From the 1980s to 2009, the army was engaged in the Sri Lankan Civil War.
The Department of Posts, functioning under the brand name Sri Lanka Post, is a government operated postal system in Sri Lanka. The postal headquarters is the General Post Office which is located in Colombo. The department itself comes under the purview of the Ministry of Information and Mass Media. It was formerly known as the Ceylon Post and Telecommunications Department and is one of the oldest Government departments in existence today.
The former Colombo General Post Office, at 17 Janadhipathi Mawatha, Colombo Fort, was the headquarters of the Sri Lanka Post and the office of the Postmaster General for over one hundred years, from 1895 until 2000.
Rugby union in Sri Lanka is mainly played at a semi-professional and recreational level. It is a popular team sport with a history dating back to 1879. In 2012, according to International Rugby Board figures, there were over 103,000 registered rugby union players in Sri Lanka, making it the second largest rugby-playing nation in Asia, behind Japan.
South Africa – Sri Lanka relations refers to the current and historical relations between South Africa and Sri Lanka. The Government of South Africa established its resident diplomatic Mission in Colombo in September 2007. HE Sirisena Amarasekara is the current Sri Lankan High Commissioner to South Africa while HE Ms RP Marks is the current South African High Commissioner to Sri Lanka.
The Galle Fort Post Office is the post office in Galle Fort, Sri Lanka.
Bernard Soysa was a Sri Lankan politician.
Major George William Stewart, was the third Postmaster General of Ceylon, serving from 1826 to 1833.
Abdon Ignatius Perera JP, CBE was the first Ceylonese Postmaster General and Director of Telecommunications, serving in the position from 1947 to 1951.
Maurice Salvador Sreshta served as the Postmaster General of Ceylon from 1923 to 1928.
Thomas Edward Barnes Skinner was the Postmaster General of Ceylon, between 1871 and 1896.
Lieutenant-Colonel John Pringle Appleby was the Postmaster General of Ceylon for seven years, between 1940 and 1947.
Louis Sansoni served as the second Postmaster General of Ceylon, between 1816 and 1825.
George Lee was the first Superintendent of the Government Printing Office in Ceylon, between 1833 and 1835 and the Postmaster General of Ceylon between 1844 and 1859.
Egbert Bletterman, was the first official Postmaster General of Ceylon, serving from 1815 to 1817.
Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Albert Nicholas, MBE, was the sixteenth Postmaster General of Ceylon, serving between 1951 and 1956, and the second Ceylonese to hold the post.