Sri Lanka; President, Sinhalese Sports Club; and Secretary, Royal College Union. Following the family tradition, Jayewardene entered the University College, Colombo in 1926 pursuing the Advocate's course, reading English, Latin, Logic and Economics for two years, after which he entered Ceylon Law College in 1928. He formed the College Union based on that of the Oxford Union with assistance of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike who had recently return to Ceylon. At the Ceylon Law College he won the Hector Jayewardene Gold Medal and the Walter Pereira Prize in 1929. During this time he worked as his father's Private Secretary, while latter served as a Puisne Justice of Supreme Court of Ceylon and in July 1929, he joined three others in forming a dining club they called The Honorable Society of Pushcannons, which was later renamed as the Priya Sangamaya. In 1931, he passed his advocates exams, starting his legal practice in the unofficial bar. Marriage On 28 February 1935, Jayewardene married the heiress Elina Bandara Rupasinghe, only daughter of Nancy Margaret Suriyabandara and Gilbert Leonard Rupasinghe, a notary public turned successful businessmen. Their only child Ravindra "Ravi" Vimal Jayewardene was born the year after. Having originally settled at Jayewardene's parents house Vaijantha, the Jayewardene's moved to their own house Braemar in 1938, where they remained the rest of their lives, when not holidaying at their holiday home in Mirissa. Early Political Career Jayewardene was attracted to national politics in his student years and developed strong nationalist views. He converted from Anglicanism to Buddhism and adopted the national dress as his formal attire. Jayewardene did not practice law for long. In 1943 he gave up his full time legal practice to become an activist in the Ceylon National Congress (CNC), which provided the organizational platform for Ceylon's nationalist movement (the island was officially renamed Sri Lanka in 1972). He became its Joint Secretary with Dudley Senanayake in 1939 and in 1940 he was elected to the Colombo Municipal Council from the New Bazaar Ward. State Council He was elected to the colonial legislature, the State Council in 1943 by winning the Kelaniya by-election following the resignation of incumbent D. B. Jayatilaka. His victory is credited to his use of an anti-Christian campaign against his opponent the nationalist E. W. Perera. During World War II, Jayewardene, along with other nationalists, contacted the Japanese and discussed a rebellion to drive the British