On 2nd January 1817, Father Marcelline Champagnat, son of a farmer in the hamlet of Rozey close to the town of Marlhes in Loire, France, now Saint Marcelline Champagnat, founded the religious order of the Marist Brothers. A hundred years later,  in 1918, four religious Brothers of this congregation came to Negombo, Sri Lanka, and took over the management of St.Mary's College. In 1922, the school moved to its present site and assumed the new name of Maris Stella College, and  thus our school was born.

Today, the College stands on an eight acre block of land only a short distance away from the centre of the city of Negombo commonly known as "Little Rome" owing to its large Catholic population and its beautiful churches.