Leonard Woolf as a Judge in Ceylon

Book Details

ISBN : 978-955-0028-69-6
Author : Prabhath de Silva
Translator :
Publisher : Neptune Publications (Pvt) Ltd.
Printed by : Neptune Publications (Pvt) Ltd.
Language : English
Pages : 180         Size : 148 x 210 x 14 mm      Weight (kg) : 0.415
E_Book : Available
Web :

Description : A British Civil Servant as a Judge in the Hambantota District of Colonial Sri Lanka (1908-1911)

Caption   :   Leonard Sidney Woolf (1880 – 1969) was a British political theorist, author and publisher. He was the husband of  Virginia Woolf, the famous novelist.

Leonard Woolf, tried many civil and criminal court cases when serving as a member of the Ceylon Civil Service at Hambantota from 1908 to 1911.  Prabhath de Silva has taken pains to collect extensive evidence from many sources, including Woolf’s official diary, his autobiography, manuscripts found in the record room of Hambantota District Court, and his famous novel, ‘ The Village in the Jungle’.  These sources are woven together to provide a vivid account of Woolf’s approach to law and justice.  In this new edition, de Silva has expanded his use of foreign and local secondary sources in order to place Woolf’s judicial work in a wider context.  De Silva’s analysis shows that Woolf’s distinctive personality affected the way he approached the cases he heard.  At the same time, the book also has wider implications for understanding colonial justice and the ideological foundations of British rule in Ceylon.