Sir Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke, GCMG, KCVO, KBE (Sinhala:ශ්‍රිමත් ඔලිවර් ගුණතිලක) (20 October 1892 – 17 December 1978) was an important figure in the gradual independence of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from Britain, and became the third Governor-General of Ceylon (1954-1962). He was the first Ceylonese individual to hold the vice-regal post.

 

Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke was born 20 October 1892, fifth child and only son of Alfred Goonetilleke, postmaster at Trincomalee in the northeast of Ceylon. He was educated at Wesley College, Colombo, and served there as an assistant teacher for a short time before joining a bank and there after joining government service of the crown colony of Ceylon as a railway auditor and then went on to become its Auditor-General. He served as Chairman of the Salaries and Cadres Commission also.

 

He was married to Esther (née Jayawardena) and had three children, Joyce, Shiela and Ernie.

 

By the 1930s Ceylon was increasingly self-governing in internal matters, and Goonetilleke rose through the administration. With the coming of World War II and the likelihood that Ceylon would face military threat from Japan, Goonetilleke was placed at the head of a new Civil Defence Department as Civil Defence Commissioner in the War Cabinet of Ceylon, a move that proved to be justified when air raids on Colombo and other cities began in the spring of 1942. Sir Ivor Jennings, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ceylon, served as Goonetilleke's deputy, and the two worked closely with D. S. Senanayake, the minister of Agriculture and Lands. Those three, the brains trust of the Ceylon government in their time, were nicknamed "the Breakdown Gang" as they began to talk about much besides civil defence, including the steps that might be taken to move Ceylon to complete independence after the War. Eventually they were the leaders who brought the project to fruition, with independence for Ceylon on 4 February 1948, when Senanayake became Prime Minister.

 

In 1947 when the first cabinet of ministers was formed with Senanayake as Prime Minister, Sir Oliver, who had been appointed to the Senate of Ceylon after resigning from the public service, became the Minister of Home Affairs and Rural Development. He later resigned and was appointed the first High Commissioner of the United Kingdom. On his return to Ceylon he became the Leader of the Senate and the Minister of Food and Agriculture.

 

Sir Oliver Goonetilleke left the Governor-General's post on 2 March 1962 and led a retired life in London soon after an attempted military coup as some of the Crown witnesses tried to link him and former Prime Ministers, Dudley Senanayake and Colonel Sir John Kotelawala, with the conspiracy. Although this was never proven Sir Oliver Goonetilleke resigned and went into self-imposed exile in Britain. He also became both sufficiently affluent and sufficiently familiar with British business affairs to become an Underwriting Member of Lloyd's of London, the famous reinsurance house in London. He married Phyllis Miller, who was the secretary of the Soulbury Commission, whom he had befriended during the period of the Commission circa 1944, and lived near Marble Arch at 14, Albion Gate.

 

He died in Sri Lanka after a brief illness in 1978. A biography under the title 'OEG' was written by Charles Joseph Jeffries, and memorials to Goonetilleke include a six-foot bronze statue by sculptor Tissa Ranasinghe, commissioned by his family and installed in 1967 at a major roundabout in Colombo.