Naganather Canaganayagam

Gate Mudaliyar Naganather Canaganayagam, CBE, JP, FREconS (27 May 1892 - 1 January 1967) was a Ceylonese banker, planter and local politician, who served as the first Tamil Mayor of Kandy in 1942.

Suriyakumara Nichinga Senathiraja Ambalavaner Naganather Thandigai Canaganayagam was born on 27 May 1892 in Kopay, Jaffna, the son of Atikar Ambalavaner Naganather CBE JP, UM (1850-1953), a banker and rubber plantation owner, and Sethuppillai Ampalavanar. Canaganayagam attended Saint Joseph's College, Colombo, where he won prizes for Latin, French and Physics. He then attended the Ceylon Medical School leaving in his second year to become a banker. In 1912 he was appointed the head shroff of the National Bank of India in Nuwara Eliya, succeeding his father. and was made a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society. He served as both as the deputy mayor in 1941 and the mayor in 1942, becoming the first Tamil mayor of the council. Canaganayagam was awarded the titular honor of Gate Mudliyar by the British Government of Ceylon, and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1951 New Year Honours. He was a member of the Planters' Association, Low Country Planters' Association and the Kandy National Museum Advisory Committee. The University of Peradeniya's Department of Economics and Statistics issues an annual prize in economics in his name.