Senerat Gunewardene
Sri Lankan politician
Sir Senerat Gunewardene (also known as Ratnakirti Senerat Serasinghe Gunewardene or R.S.S. Gunewardene) (3 November 1899 – 10 August 1981) was a Sri Lankan lawyer, statesmen and diplomat. He was the first Minister without Portfolio, member of parliament and member of the State Council for Gampola, before serving in several top diplomatic posts such as Ceylon's Ambassador to Italy, Ceylon's Ambassador to the United States, where he was appointed concurrently as Ceylon's first Permanent Representative to United Nations and Ceylon's High Commissioner to United Kingdom.
Early life and education
Born on 3 November 1899 in Nupe, Matara as Samson Gunewardene, he later changed his name to Ratnakirthi Senerath Serasinghe Gunewardene and was known as R. S. S. Gunewardene. His father Don Bentis Serasinghe Gunewardene was an ayurvedic practitioner, he was the eldest in a family of three brothers and one sister. Both his brothers became lawyers and one went on to become a District Judge. Educated at St. Thomas' College, Matara and at S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia, where he was a good friend of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike.
Teaching career
He had to leave school before completing his schooling due to the death of his father. Returning to Matara, in order to support himself and his family, he became a teacher at St. Thomas' College, Matara at the age of 16.
“Senerat Gunewardene” enters the record as sri Lankan politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Senerat, Gunewardene and Lankan can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Senerat Gunewardene” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Senerat, Gunewardene and Lankan provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7450498. The first chronological checks are 1899 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Senerat Gunewardene” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.