[2] Trinity offers primary and secondary education, and is a leading private school in Sri Lanka managed by the Anglican Church of Ceylon.

[3][4] In 1857 the local Anglican community in Kandy urged the Church Mission Society (CMS) to establish a school for boys in the area.

Richard Collins, the principal of the CMS Syrian College of Travancore to re-open the collegiate school in Kandy.

[8] On 18 January 1872, it was re-opened as the Trinity College and Collegiate School, with the Collins as principal [9][10] and by the end of that year there were 120 enrolled students.

[7][13] On 2 April 1890, Perry was accidentally shot dead near Alutnuwara, whilst on a visit to the Vedda people in the area.

Robert William Ryde, who had previously been the vice-principal at the school from 1895 to 1899 before becoming the principal at St. John's College, Jaffna.

[9][17] His educational reforms included the introduction of Sinhalese and Tamil into the curriculum and increased its involvement in the local community.

The board's first appointment was C. E. Simithraaratchy, the first old boy and Ceylonese-born principal, who ran the school from 1941 until 1951, including the Second World War years.

Araliya Jayasundara OSB assumed the role of principal, succeeding Andrew Fowler-Watt, effective from 1 October 2020.

Among the Trinitians, Aelian Perera was awarded a commission with the Durham Light Infantry and J. W. S. Bartholomeusz received the Croix de Guerre of the first class for his valour.

[39] The World War I memorial of a German machine gun stands overlooking the quadrangle in front of the Alison house.

The memorial is based on traditional Sri Lankan architecture and was unveiled on behalf of King George V on 16 October 1919 by Sir William Henry Manning, the Governor of Ceylon.

I find that 65 masters, men and boys gave their services overseas during the war and of these 65, there were no fewer than 33 casualties – 13 killed, 18 wounded, and two taken prisoner by the Germans.

The tune of the school song was composed by Lawrence Arthur Adamson, headmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne in 1907.

Senior was the vice-principal at the college for ten years (1906–1916), he also deputised as acting principal for a short period in the absence of Alexander Fraser.

It is awarded on the result of a secret ballot conducted among the senior boys and the staff whose votes, together with that of the principal, each count as one.

[53] The Ryde Gold Medal was first presented in 1908 to John Andrew, but he was not the first boy in the history of the school to be adjudged the best all-rounder.

Notable winners of the Ryde Gold Medal include Dr Jayantha Dhanapala (1956), the former Under Secretary-General of the UN and senior special advisor to presidents Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapakse, former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar (1949), former vice president and CIO of the World Bank; M.V.

Muhsin (1962), first Ceylonese IGP and Ambassador Sir Richard Aluwihare (1915) and Sri Lankan Cricket Captain Kumar Sangakkara (1996).

Notable awardees of Trinity Lions include former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar; former Lieutenant General Denzil Kobbekaduwa: Sri Lankan Cricketers Kumar Sangakkara, Ravi Ratnayeke, Olympic Silver Medalist Duncan White and former major general and Ambassador Niranjan A Ranasinghe.

There has been one Triple Lion in Trinity's history which is Thushara Weerasooriya who achieved this feat in 1986 in Rugby, Cricket, and Athletics.

Royal families in Uganda, Gold Coast (Ghana), Brunei and Maldives, to respectable communities in China and the Middle East, boarded their children at Trinity in the days of old.

And within these houses, they had separate sections named after three well-known British Public Schools, Eton, Harrow and Rugby.