Story
The story of National Museum of Colombo
This is the largest museum in Sri Lanka, and it opened on 1 January 1877. Its founder was the British governor Sir William Henry Gregory, whom the Royal Asiatic Society had urged to create a public museum. The Italian-style building was designed by James George Smither and built by Arasi Marikar Wapchie Marikar, who also built the General Post Office and the Galle Face Hotel. At the opening, the governor asked Wapchi Marikar what honour he wished for.
He asked only that the museum be closed on Fridays, the Muslim sabbath, and the request was granted. Years later, when the throne of the last Kandyan king was to be exhibited, Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake obtained the consent of Marikar's grandson to open on the Fridays in between. That throne, with the crown jewels of the last King of Kandy, returned by the British government, is among the museum's treasures.
Its library, founded the same day, became the island's first legal deposit library.
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