Dharmaraja College now a premiere Buddhist school in this country will be 115 years old an June 30th this year. It had been started due to the efforts of Col. Henry Steele Olcott, the founder of the Theosophical Society in the country, in an abandoned Bana Salawa in the premises of the Natha Devalaya, with a Buddhist, Andiris de Silva as Headmaster with eight boys followed by D.B. Jayathilake (later Sir Don Baron) as the first Principal who began building it up. He was succeeded by three Courageous and devoted foreigners. Harry Bambury, Wilton Hack (after brief break with C.S. Rajarathnam a Tamil Advocate) K. F. Billimoria, a parsee from Bombay who had visited Ceylon (S. L.) from Bombury and Hack had shown much pluck and courage, despite lack of funds many odds and opposition from Christian missionaries who had already established a Christian school in Kandy. With British occupation and the opening up of the hills for coffee plantations the villages had been driven to the foot of hills and were eking out an existence. Undaunted, Bambury had Hack finding the funds from the few benefactors insufficient, had gone to these distance places and collected money to develop the School.
