Receiving his early education at the village school, he attended Richmond College in Galle, where his form master was C. W. W. Kannangara.

In 1912, he transferred to Wesley College, Colombo and won the Government Arts Scholarship to study in Britain.

On 31 March 1922, Thompson laid the foundation stone for a sixteen classroom building at Campbell Place.

Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore visited the college on 10 November 1922, as chief guest at the annual prize giving.

In 1928 the college won the Herman Loos cup for the best cadet platoon and the Stubs challenge shield for boxing.

In a novel experiment for that era, Kularatne encouraged his staff to write textbooks in English on geography, history, botany, and other sciences.

Dharmaraja was facing a financial crisis when Kularatne assumed duties, and even the Lake View premise was under threat of being sold.

He restored the hostel and transformed the principal's quarters at the city premises to classrooms and a laboratory complex, and Dharmaraja started teaching science subjects in 1933.

The roads and other facilities were also developed so that Lake View transformed from a shrubbery into a property any school would be proud to own.

In 1935 Dharmaraja was visited by four distinguished visitors from India; Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Uday Shankar and Kalki Krishnamurthy.

He contested the 1952 general election from the Colombo Central electorate from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, but lost.

Following the death of Bandaranaike and the political upheaval that followed, Kularatne joined the United National Party.

He crossed over and sat as an independent member, having resigned from the United National Party over its opposition to the governments move to take over private schools run by the Church by the Assisted Schools and Training Colleges (Special Provisions) Act No 5 of 1960, which he supported.

He lost his seat in the 1965 general election when he contested from the Ambalangoda electorate from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

Finding no-one there he, went to the Orient Club, knowing that the Inspector General of Police Walter Abeykoon would be there playing bridge.

Abeykoon called the head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) S. A. Dissanayake and instructed to look into the matter and went on to play bridge.

Later that evening Kularatne went to Temple Trees two times, taking with him Stanley Senanayake on his second visit.

His remains lay in state at Ananda College, before final rites took place at the Colombo General Cemetery.

He lived thereafter in Gangasiri, Panadura; Charles Circus, Colombo; Pamankada; Orient Club and, finally, moving in with his daughter at Stanmore Crescent until his death.

Patrick de Silva Kularatne died on 16 November 1976 and was honoured as a national hero by the release of a stamp by Sri Lanka Post on 22 May 1987.