A SHORT HISTORY OF THE CEYLON MEDICAL COLLEGE COUNCIL
The Ceylon Medical Council (CMC) was established by the Medical Council Ordinance No. 24 of 1924. The first meeting of the CMC was held on 22nd June 1925 at 3.00 p.m. in the Colombo Medical Library, chaired by the first president, Dr. N. Duncan Walker. The other members of the Council were Doctors J.S.R. Gunawardana, R. Pestonjee, E.A. Cooray, J.O.B. Van Langenburg, Lucian De Zilva, H.M. Peiris, P.J. Chissel, Frank Gunasekera and G. Thornton. At this meeting, Dr. Lucian De Zilva was elected the Vice President and Prof. F.O.B. Ellison, the Registrar. Council meetings were held in the medical library up to January 1930 when meetings were held in the Board Room of the Medical College. The clerical and secretarial work of the Council was carried out by the staff of the Medical College until an office room was provided in the administrative block of the medical faculty in 1968. An office assistant and a peon were recruited with a part-time clerk.
In 1971, the medical faculty requested the Council to vacate its office for expansion of the library and the Council office was shifted to a room on the first floor of the CMA (present SLMA) building at Wijerama Mawatha. The venue of Council meetings then became the Council Room of the Medical Association. After some time, the Council accepted an offer of a bigger room at the SLMA House for the payment of a rent of Rs. 55,000 per month to be paid as an advance for five years and this was accepted.
The Council tried to construct its own building but could not obtain state land in a convenient place. A site belonging to the Health Department was offered in 1999, behind the premises of the Health Department Sports Club but the architects were of the opinion that the cost for filling the land would be too high. In 2001, the Council purchased a 17 perch block of land in extent at No. 31, Norris Canal Road, Colombo 10 and laid the foundation stone for the building in December that year. The construction of the building was completed in December 2002 and the Council moved into the premises in January 2003.