The village came to be in 1963 when T William Fernando, who was mayor of Nuwara Eliya, indulged in his obsession with starting villages. He did this in hopes of resettling (though resettling might be the perfect word as the lands were originally wild and overgrown before the British era) the Sinhala community in the area, claiming the lands which were overtaken by tea estates and migrant Indian Tamil tea workers. While his attempts failed, for the most part, he did create 18 new villages, including Shanthipura, leaving his footprint in history.