Grace Paul

Paul was born in Jaffna, to Tamil Christian parents, Rev. Isaac Paul and Elizabeth Holsington Paul.^[1] Her grandfather, father, and uncles were pastors, connected with the American Ceylon Mission.^[2] She graduated from Uduvil Seminary and Madras Christian College before attending Mount Holyoke College in 1920.^[3][2] At Mount Holyoke, she was president of the Cosmopolitan Club.^[4] She graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1924,^[5] and pursued further studies at Teachers College, Columbia University.^[6]

While a student in the United States, she attended the 19th Conference of Women's Foreign Missionary Societies in 1922, in Massachusetts.^[7] In 1924, she spoke at the Fourth Congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Washington.^[8]

Paul taught science at Uduvil Girls' School, and was eventually principal of the school's bilingual program. From 1947 to 1955, she was principal at Girls' High School, Kandy,^[9] the school's first Sri Lankan head.^[10] From 1958 to 1964, she was principal of St. Paul's Girls School, Milagiriya. She was known for requiring laboratory work in her classes.^[6]

In 1941 she was a founding member of the Ceylon Federation of University Women, along with Doreen Young Wickremasinghe, Hilda Kularatne, Susan George Pulimood, Marjorie Westrop, and Clara Motwani. She was the only native-born founder of the organization, and its first Sri Lankan president, leading the federation from 1944 to 1946 and from 1958 to 1959.^[11]

In 1932, she visited one of her brothers, clergyman and educator Charles Blackshear Paul, in Singapore^[12] and spoke on her experiences in the United States.^[13] She survived her brother Charles when he died in 1973.^[14]