His father Henry Mahendrapala Amarasuriya was a proprietor, shipping merchant and independence activist.
[3] In 1932 he married Lucille Gwendoleen Lois, the daughter of M. J. C. Fernando, the well known Buddhist leader of Moratuwa and founder of Moratu Maha Vidalaya.
He allocated funds for extension work to the Princess Louise Hospital that had been donated by Sir Charles Henry de Soysa.
In 1953 he was elected a member of the Senate of Ceylon and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1953 Coronation Honours for his services for the plantation industry.
In 1956 the Planters Association of Ceylon broke a 102-year-old tradition to elect Senator Thomas Amarasuriya as the first Ceylonese chairman.