Ivor Jennings

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Sir William Ivor Jennings, KBE, (May 16, 1903 - December 19, 1965) educated at Bristol Grammar School, was a British lawyer, and educator who went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1942 with a mandate to create a university for that land, then a Crown colony. The institution, on the model of University of London, was dubbed the University of Ceylon and was first established in Colombo, the capital city, then transferred in 1952 to a purpose-built campus in Peradeniya.

In 1955, Jennings received an honorary doctorate by vote of the senate of the University of Ceylon to recognize his work in creating and building the institution. In the same year he returned to Britain to take up the post of Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He subsequently served at term as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cambridge, a position which at that time rotated among the heads of the colleges.

Jennings was an authority on constitutional law and is author of a definitive book on the workings of the British constitution. He was a member of the Reid Commission from June 1956 to 1957, which was responsible for drafting the Constitution of the Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia).