Daniel Poor

Daniel Poor (27 June 1789 – 3 February 1855) was an American Presbyterian missionary and educator, and the founder of the first English School in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.

Poor pioneered the English education service to Tellippalai and its adjoining villages is magnanimous and admirable and to be remembered for ever by the poor, middle and the upper class folks of the region who had an advantage of high-standard education over the other rural areas of the Jaffna peninsula in the 19th century.

Though the American missionaries came with dedication and fanaticism to spread Christianity, they did not confine themselves strictly and fully to evangelism alone; they were keen to impart a liberal education.

Samuel Newell got a charter from the British governor to impart a primary education service to the public in the parched north.

On 9 December 1816, Poor founded the ‘Common Free School’ which is currently known as Union College, Tellippalai in the ‘Dutch Hall’ that had been infested with poisonous serpents when Rev.

Poor began to preach through an interpreter, but his progress in Tamil was so rapid that he spoke the language freely in less than a year.

Of the other three missionary colleagues, Edward Warren who was of fragile health, died in South Africa after leaving Colombo in April 1818.

He was transferred to Madurai, India in 1836, where he founded thirty-seven schools that he visited in succession, and frequently addressed from horse-back to crowds of adult natives.

Poor had performed a noble service to Tellippalai in the fields of English education, the Tamil language and social advancement.