Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy

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For descendants of the same name, see Jejeebhoy baronets.

Sir

Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy

Bt, CMG, FRAS
Jejeebhoy on a 1959 stamp of India
Born(1783-07-15)15 July 1783
Bombay, Maratha Confederacy
Died14 April 1859(1859-04-14) (aged 75)
Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India
OccupationMerchandiser, business magnate

Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, 1st Baronet, CMG, FRAS (15 July 1783 – 14 April 1859),[1] also spelt Jeejeebhoy or Jeejebhoy, was an Indian merchant and philanthropist. He made a significant fortune in cotton and was also a participant in the opium trade.[2][3][4]

Early life and business career[edit | edit source]

Jejeebhoy was born in Bombay in 1783, the son of Merwanjee Mackjee Jejeebhoy and Jeevibai Cowasjee Jejeebhoy. His father was a Parsi textile merchant from Surat, Gujarat, who migrated to Bombay in the 1770s.[5] Both of his parents died in 1799, leaving the sixteen-year-old under the care of his maternal uncle Framjee Nasserwanjee Battliwala. At the age of sixteen, having had little formal education,[6] he made his first visit to Calcutta and subsequently began trading voyages to China involving cotton and opium.[7]

Jejeebhoy's second voyage to China was made in a ship of the British East India Company fleet. Under the command of Sir Nathaniel Dance, the fleet repelled a French squadron under Rear-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois in the Battle of Pulo Aura.[6]

On Jejeebhoy's fourth voyage to China, the Indiaman in which he sailed was captured by the French, who carried him as a prisoner to the Cape of Good Hope, then a Dutch possession.[6] After considerable delay, he returned to Calcutta aboard a Danish vessel.[6] He subsequently undertook another voyage to China, which proved more successful than his earlier journeys.[6]

By this time Jejeebhoy had established a reputation as an enterprising merchant and had accumulated considerable wealth.[6] In 1803, he married his maternal uncle's daughter Avabai (d. 1870) and settled in Bombay, where he expanded his commercial activities.[6] Around this time he adopted the name "Jamsetjee" in place of "Jamshed". By the age of forty he had accumulated more than two crore rupees. Further wealth came from the cotton trade during the Napoleonic Wars. He acquired his own fleet of ships. Mountstuart Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay, remarked that "By strict integrity, by industry and punctuality in all his commercial transactions, he contributed to raise the character of the Bombay merchant in the most distant markets."[8]

In 1814, profits from trade enabled him to purchase his first ship, Good Success, and he gradually expanded his fleet to seven vessels, which primarily carried opium and cotton to China.[9] By 1836, his firm employed his sons and other relatives and had amassed substantial wealth.[6]

Jejeebhoy and his family were also known by the name "Battliwala", reflecting commercial interests associated with the bottle trade. The name was used in business and social contexts, although he did not adopt it as part of his baronetcy title.[10] His family frequently used the name "Battliwala" in business and social contexts, reflecting commercial interests connected with bottle manufacture and trade, though he did not adopt the name formally when granted a baronetcy.

In 1818, he established the trading and shipping firm Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy & Co. with Motichund Amichund and Mahomed Ali Rogay. He later worked with Rogério de Faria. His voyages to China led to a long association with Jardine Matheson & Co. of Canton. Jejeebhoy served as one of the firm's Indian associates and underwriters.[11] He was regarded by British authorities as a leading representative of Bombay's Indian mercantile community.[12]

He was one of two Indian members appointed to the first board of management of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, alongside Jagannath Shankarsheth.[13][14]

Philanthropy[edit | edit source]

Sketch of Jejeebhoy, 1857
The Illustrated London News print of Jejeebhoy's residence, 1858
Engraving of the Bombay Native Hospital, constructed at the joint expense of Jejeebhoy and the East India Company; it was later renamed "Sir J. J. Hospital".
Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy statue, Mumbai

An essentially self-made man, having experienced poverty in early life, Jejeebhoy developed sympathy for those in need.[6] During his later years he devoted substantial resources to charitable causes. Hospitals, schools, charitable institutions and pension funds throughout India, particularly in Bombay, Navsari, Surat, and Poona, were created or supported through his donations, and he financed the construction of public works including wells, reservoirs, bridges and causeways.[6] By the time of his death in 1859, he was estimated to have donated more than £230,000 to charitable causes.[6] His philanthropic activities expanded significantly from 1822, when he paid the debts of poor prisoners confined in Bombay's civil jail.[15]

Among his notable charitable contributions were:

  • Mahim Causeway: The British Government declined to finance a causeway connecting Mahim and Bandra. Jejeebhoy's wife, Avabai Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, contributed Rs. 155,800 towards its construction. Work commenced in 1841 and was completed several years later.
  • He paid two-thirds of the cost of the Poona (now Pune) waterworks project, with the remainder funded by the government.[17]
  • He spent Rs. 145,403 establishing the Sir J. J. Dharamshala on Bellasis Road.[8]

Baronetcy[edit | edit source]

Jejeebhoy's services were recognised by the British government when he was knighted in 1842 and later created a baronet in 1857.[19] These honours were the first knighthood and baronetcy conferred by Queen Victoria upon an Indian subject.[6]

Upon his death in 1859, the baronetcy passed to his eldest son, Cursetjee Jejeebhoy, who subsequently assumed the name Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy under the provisions of the original letters patent.[6]

When Jejeebhoy died in 1859, a Bombay newspaper described him as:

"Simple in his tastes and manners, and dignified in his address, the personal appearance of Sir Jamsetjee, in later years, was a picture of greatness in repose. He had done his work, and entered upon the sabbath of his life."

[20]

Advocate of non-violence[edit | edit source]

In 1855, under royal patronage, the Patriotic Fund was established to assist wounded soldiers and the families of those who had died during the Crimean War. Jejeebhoy contributed Rs. 5,000 to the fund. In a speech delivered on the occasion, he expressed opposition to the human and economic costs of war:

Of none of the great evils which afflict our race do we form such inadequate conceptions as of the evils of war. War is exhibited to us in the dazzling dress of poetry, fiction, and history, where its horrors are carefully concealed beneath its gaudy trappings; or we see, perhaps, its plumes and epaulettes, and harlequin finery, we hear of the magnificence of the apparatus, the bravery of the troops, the glory of the victors, but the story of the wholesale miseries and wretchedness and wrongs which follow in its train is untold … What nation is not groaning under war-debts, the greatest of national burdens! Had the inconceivable sum wasted in the work of human butchery been applied to promote individual comfort and national prosperity, the world would not now be so far behind as it is in its career of progress … Our duty to relieve the sufferers in this great war would have remained the same whether the war had been a just one or not; but, considering the nature and objects of this war, we extend this relief now more as a privilege than as a duty … To the call of our gracious Sovereign, and to the call of humanity, the Parsis, my lord, will cordially respond.

His concern for the welfare of animals was reflected in his support for efforts to prevent cruelty towards them. During the nineteenth century, the East India Company maintained a policy of destroying stray dogs in Bombay, which generated public opposition. In response to concerns regarding animal welfare, Jejeebhoy and Amichand Shah helped establish the Bombay Panjrapole on 18 October 1834.[21]

Arms[edit | edit source]

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General and cited references[edit | edit source]

  • B. K. Karanjia (1998). Give Me a Bombay Merchant Anytime!: The Life of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, Bt., 1783–1859. University of Mumbai.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20080501224923/http://www.leighrayment.com/baronetage/baronetsJ.htm[usurped]
  2. ↑ Palsetia, Jesse S. (2001), The Parsis of India: Preservation of Identity in Bombay City, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, p. 55, ISBN 9004121145
  3. ↑ Prakash, Gyan (2010), Mumbai Fables, New Delhi: HarperCollins, ISBN 9350291665
  4. ↑ Farooqui, Amar (2005), Smuggling as Subversion: Colonialism, Indian Merchants, and the Politics of Opium, 1790–1843, New Delhi: Lexington Books, p. 210, ISBN 0739108867
  5. ↑ Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy. Retrieved 16 August 2015. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bhownaggree, Mancherjee Merwanjee (1911). "Jeejeebhoy, Sir Jamsetjee". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 300.
  7. ↑ Rungta, Shyam (1970), The Rise of Business Corporations in India, 1851–1900, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, p. 57, ISBN 0-521-07354-5
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Yatha Ahu Vairyo Mohalla". 30 January 2012.
  9. ↑ Bulley, Anne (16 December 2013). The Bombay Country Ships 1790–1833. Routledge. ISBN 978-1136833137.
  10. ↑ Edward Balfour, ed. (1885). Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia. Vol. 1 (3rd ed.). London: Bernard Quaritch. p. XXX.
  11. ↑ "Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy: China, William Jardine, the Celestial, and Other HK Connections".
  12. ↑ Karaka, D. F. (1884). History of the Parsis. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. ↑ Patwardhan, G. D. (15 August 1995). "Off the Rails".
  14. ↑ Egbers, Vera; Kamleithner, Christa; Sezer, Özge; Skedzuhn-Safir, Alexandra (2024). Architectures of Colonialism: Constructed Histories, Conflicting Memories. Birkhäuser. p. 85. ISBN 978-3-0356-2670-4.
  15. ↑ "Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy". www.robinsonlibrary.com. Archived from the original on 22 April 2017.
  16. ↑ "Sir JJ College Of Architecture, Bombay – Home". Sir JJ College of Architecture. Accessed 23 May 2010.
  17. ↑ Manuel, Thomas (4 May 2019). "The opium trader who became one of India's richest men". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  18. ↑ "Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy – Lesser Known Facts" (PDF). 12 July 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 July 2011. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  19. ↑ "No. 22003". The London Gazette. 19 May 1857. p. 1770.
  20. ↑ "What it takes for Sir J J Agiary in Pune's Camp to keep the flame alive". The Indian Express. 29 April 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2023.
  21. ↑ "History". Bombay Panjrapole. Retrieved 4 May 2018.

External links[edit | edit source]

Baronetage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baronet
(of Bombay)
1857–1859 		Succeeded by
Cursetjee Jejeebhoy
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