British Ceylon in the context of "Legislative Council"

Ceylon was an independent country in the Commonwealth of Nations from 1948 to 1972, that shared a monarch with other dominions of the Commonwealth. In 1948, the British Colony of Ceylon was granted independence as Ceylon. In 1972, the country became a republic within the Commonwealth, and its name was changed to Sri Lanka.

A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the British (former) colonies. However, it has also been used as designation in other (non-Commonwealth) nations. A member of a legislative council is commonly referred to as an MLC.

A legislative council was generally the first legislative body of a British colony, with members who were all appointed by the viceregal representative (who also presided over the council). Gradually, with the passage of time and increasing levels of self-governance, legislative councils were supplemented by a lower, elected chamber (often called a legislative assembly or house of assembly). This resulted in either the abolition of the council to form a unicameral and wholly elected legislature (as done in New Zealand in 1951, Southern Rhodesia in 1923, Singapore in 1955 and Ceylon in 1931) or the democratisation of and a gradual decrease in powers exercised by the council, as done in India in 1919 and in Australian states throughout the twentieth century.

Burgher people, also known simply as Burghers, are a small Eurasian ethnic group in Sri Lanka descended from Portuguese, Dutch, British and other Europeans who settled in Ceylon. The Portuguese and Dutch had held some of the maritime provinces of the island for centuries before the advent of the British Empire. Burgher people are often referred to as belonging to one of two sub-groups, either Dutch Burghers or Portuguese Burghers, though both are of mixed descent.

Most of those who retained close ties with the Netherlands departed with the establishment of British Ceylon as a crown colony at the end of the 18th century. 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. Portuguese settlers were mostly traders who formed colonies. Lisbon did not discourage European settlement—even to the extent of advocating intermarriage with the Sinhalese. This was not encouraged by the Sinhalese. It was not the policy of the Dutch East India Company to endorse similar unions, although unofficial liaisons between its employees and local women occurred in the late eighteenth century.

The Treaty of Amiens (French: la paix d'Amiens, lit. 'the peace of Amiens') temporarily ended hostilities between France, the Spanish Empire, and the United Kingdom at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. It marked the end of the French Revolutionary Wars; after a short peace it set the stage for the Napoleonic Wars. Britain gave up most of its recent conquests; France was to evacuate Naples and Egypt. Britain retained Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Trinidad.

It was signed in the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) of Amiens on 25 March 1802 (4 Germinal X in the French Revolutionary calendar) by Joseph Bonaparte and Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace". The consequent peace lasted only one year (18 May 1803) and was the only period of general peace in Europe between 1793 and 1814.

Ahmed Urabi ([ˈæħmæd ʕoˈɾɑːbi]; Arabic: أحمد عرابي; 31 March 1841 – 21 September 1911), also known as Ahmed Ourabi or Orabi Pasha, was an Egyptian military officer. He was the first political and military leader in Egypt to rise from the fellahin (peasantry). Urabi participated in an 1879 mutiny that developed into the ʻUrabi revolt against the administration of Khedive Tewfik, which was under the influence of an Anglo-French consortium. He was promoted to Tewfik's cabinet and began reforms of Egypt's military and civil administrations, but the demonstrations in Alexandria of 1882 prompted a British bombardment and invasion which led to the capture of ʻUrabi and his allies and the imposition of British control in Egypt. ʻUrabi and his allies were sentenced by Tewfik into exile far away in British Ceylon, as a form of punishment.

From 1948 to 1972, the Dominion of Ceylon functioned as an independent constitutional monarchy in which a hereditary monarch was the sovereign and head of state of the country. Ceylon shared the sovereign with the other Commonwealth realms, with the country's monarchy being separate and legally distinct. The monarch's constitutional and ceremonial duties were mostly delegated to their representative, the governor-general of Ceylon.

The Ceylon Independence Act 1947 transformed the British Crown Colony of Ceylon into an independent sovereign state known as the Dominion of Ceylon. Upon independence in 1948, King George VI became the monarch of Ceylon and reigned until his death in 1952; he was succeeded by his elder daughter Queen Elizabeth II. In 1953, Elizabeth II was granted the official title of Queen of Ceylon by the country's parliament and, in this capacity, she visited the island nation in April 1954. The Crown primarily functioned as a guarantor of continuous and stable governance and a nonpartisan safeguard against the abuse of power.

Theravada Buddhism is the largest and official religion of Sri Lanka, practiced by 70.1% of the population as of 2012. Practitioners of Sri Lankan Buddhism can be found amongst the majority Sinhalese population as well as among the minority ethnic groups, most notably the Sri Lankan Chinese. Sri Lankan Buddhists share many similarities with Southeast Asian Buddhists, specifically Thai Buddhists and Burmese Buddhists due to traditional and cultural exchange. Sri Lanka is one of only five countries in the world with a Theravada Buddhist majority, and others are Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

Buddhism has been declared as the state religion under Article 9 of the Sri Lankan Constitution which can be traced back to an attempt to bring the status of Buddhism back to the status it enjoyed prior to the Dutch and British colonial eras. Sri Lanka is one of the oldest traditionally Buddhist countries.

Mahāvaṃsa (Pali: මහාවංස, romanized: Mahāvaṃsa) is the meticulously kept historical chronicle of Sri Lanka until the period of Mahasena of Anuradhapura. It was written in the style of an epic poem written in the Pali language. It relates the history of Sri Lanka from its legendary beginnings up to the reign of Mahasena of Anuradhapura covering the period between the arrival of Prince Vijaya from India in 543 BCE to his reign and later updated by different writers. It was first composed by a Buddhist monk named Mahānāma at the Mahavihāraya Temple in Anuradhapura in the 5th or 6th-century.

The Mahāvaṃsa first came to the attention of Western researchers around 1809, when Sir Alexander Johnston, Chief Justice of the British Ceylon, sent manuscripts of it and other Sri Lankan chronicles (written in mainly Sinhala language being the main language of Sri Lanka) to Europe for translation and publication. Eugène Burnouf produced a Romanized transliteration and translation into Latin in 1826, but these garnered relatively little attention. Working from Johnston's manuscripts, Edward Upham published an English translation in 1833, but it was marked by several errors in translation and interpretation, among them suggesting that the Buddha was born in Sri Lanka and built a monastery atop Adam's Peak. The first printed edition and widely read English translation was published in 1837 by George Turnour, a historian and officer of the Ceylon Civil Service who translated 38 chapters. Louis Corneille Wijesinghe completed the remaining 62 chapters and reviewed Turnour's work, publishing in 1889. A German translation of the Mahavamsa was completed by Wilhelm Geiger in 1912. This was then translated into English by Mabel Haynes Bode, and revised by Geiger.

The Sri Lankan independence movement was a peaceful political movement which was aimed at achieving independence and self-rule for the country of Sri Lanka, then British Ceylon, from the British Empire. The switch of powers was generally known as peaceful transfer of power from the British administration to Ceylon representatives, a phrase that implies considerable continuity with a colonial era that lasted 400 years. It was initiated around the turn of the 20th century and led mostly by the educated middle class. It succeeded when, on 4 February 1948, Ceylon was granted independence as the Dominion of Ceylon. Dominion status within the British Commonwealth was retained for the next 24 years until 22 May 1972 when it became a republic and was renamed the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.