The year 1899, which saw the death of Mrs. Carter and the departure of the principal, was in yet another way an unfortunate year for the College. On October 13th the roof of the main building collapsed. Had this occurred half an hour later when the whole School would have been assembled, the accident would have been very serious ; but as it was, no one was hurt. The Principal, Mr. Ryde, gives an interesting account of this incident and of the attempts he made to repair the building. He says : "On October the 13th 1 heard a crash in the School compound. I hurried over to see what had happened, and found that half of the roof of the College had collapsed. The other half had to be removed at once; and when we examined the rafters of the roof over other parts of the College, we found many were rotten. So that we have a College practically without a roof, and have found considerable difficulty in accommodating the classes, By God's mercy no one was in the building at the time the roof fell. Towards the repairs we have received promises of money and materials The way in which we hope to receive gifts of materials . will interest you. There are many boys in the College whose parents cannot be expected to contribute money. But many have in their compounds palmyra trees, which are mainly used for the beams of the roof. According to the estimate we shall need about thirty-five of these trees. Before the end of last term the Head-master went round to the boys, first of all, to obtain promises of trees, subject to the consent of the parents being given. Next day he went round again to find out in how many cases the consent of the parents had been obtained, The number of trees thus promised was about sixty. These will be cut down and brought together in six centres. Someone is lending a bullock-cart which transport the will trees to the College compound."

The repair work of the building was steadily carried on and the College was taking quite a new shape, when, in August 1900, Mr. Ryde was appointed Principal of Trinity College, Kandy. Mr. Ryde's stay in the College had been only for a year, which had been a year of hard work under great inconveniences and difficulties. In spite of all these difficulties he says in his Annual Report: "Though the results of the Government examination for the year were not quite satisfactory, our members did not suffer any diminution." It was in appreciation of the valuable work done by Mr. Ryde that in 1909 one of his pupils, Dr. S. A. Vairakiam, a distinguished Old Boy of the College, presented a silver medal, called "The Ryde Medal", to the candidate who stood first in the College in order of merit at the Cambridge Senior Local examination. Mr. Ryde, both when he was in Kandy and later in Colombo, was keenly interested in the work of the College and always ready to promote its welfare.