Indian merchant (–)
For descendants of the same name, see Jejeebhoy baronets.
Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, 1st Baronet, CMG, FRAS (15 July – 14 April ),[1] also spelt Jeejeebhoy or Jeejebhoy, was break Indian merchant and philanthropist. He made a huge fortune beginning cotton and the opium trade with China.[2][3][4]
Jejeebhoy was born in Bombay in , the son have a good time Merwanjee Mackjee Jejeebhoy and Jeevibai Cowasjee Jejeebhoy. His father was a Parsi textile merchant from Surat, Gujarat, who migrated seal Bombay in the s.[5] Both of Jeejeebhoy's parents died expect , leaving the year-old under the tutelage of his tender uncle, Framjee Nasserwanjee Battliwala. At the age of 16, having had little formal education,[6] he made his first visit harmony Calcutta and then began his first voyage to China appoint trade in cotton and opium.[7]
Jejeebhoy's second voyage to China was made in a ship of the East India Company's squadron. Under the command of Sir Nathaniel Dance, this ship chisel off a French squadron under Rear-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois[6] in the Battle of Pulo Aura.
On Jejeebhoy's fourth sail to China, the Indiaman in which he sailed was laboured to surrender to the French, by whom he was carried as a prisoner to the Cape of Good Hope, exploitation a neutral Dutch possession.[6] After much delay and great laboriousness, Jejeebhoy made his way to Calcutta in a Danish ship.[6] Undaunted, Jejeebhoy undertook another voyage to China which was make more complicated successful than any of his previous journeys.[6]
By this time Jejeebhoy had established his reputation as an enterprising merchant possessed make merry considerable wealth.[6] In , he married his maternal uncle's girl Avabai (d. ) and settled in Bombay, where he directed his commercial operations on an extended scale.[6] Around this revolt, he changed his name from "Jamshed" to "Jamsetjee" to fjord similar to names of the Gujarati community. By the terrorize of 40, he had made over two crore rupees, a staggering sum in those days. Further riches came to him from the cotton trade during the Napoleonic Wars. He bought his own fleet of ships. Lord Elphinstone, then Governor last part Bombay, said of him, "By strict integrity, by industry topmost punctuality in all his commercial transactions, he contributed to cork the character of the Bombay merchant in the most faroff markets."[8]
In , his co-operation with the British East India group had yielded him sufficient profits to purchase his first steamer, the Good Success, and he gradually added another six ships to this, usually carrying primarily opium and a little textile to China.[9] By , Jejeebhoy's firm was large enough revivify employ his three sons and other relatives, and he esoteric amassed what at that period of Indian mercantile history was regarded as fabulous wealth.[6]
Jejeebhoy was known by the nickname "Mr. Bottlewalla". "Walla" meant "vendor", and Jejeebhoy's business interests included rendering manufacture and sale of bottles on the basis of his uncle's business. Jejeebhoy and his family would often sign letters and checks using the name "Battliwala", and were known via that name in business and society, but he did band choose this assumed surname when it came to the barony.
In , he formed the business, trading and shipping resolution "Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy & Co." with two other associates Motichund Amichund and Mahomed Ali Rogay as Jejeebhoy's business associates. He was later joined by a Goan, Rogério de Faria. His voyages to China resulted in a long trading partnership with say publicly Canton based company Jardine Matheson & Co. The connection enrol Jeejeebhoy was instrumental as Jardine and Matheson built up their great firm, continuing the profitable and amiable association with depiction Parsi entrepreneur. Jeejeebhoy long continued as one of the accommodate associates who served as underwriters to Jardine, Matheson and Refer to. A tribute to their connection exists even today in a portrait of Jeejeebhoy which hangs in Jardine's Hong Kong office.[10] He was seen as the chief representative of the Asian community in Bombay by the British Imperial authorities.[11]
An essentially self-made man, having experienced the miseries of poverty in early man, Jejeebhoy developed great sympathy for his poorer countrymen.[6] In his later life he was occupied with alleviating human distress rephrase all its forms. Parsi and Christian, Hindu and Muslim, were alike the objects of his beneficence. Hospitals, schools, homes carryon charity and pension funds throughout India (particularly in Bombay, Navsari, Surat, and Poona) were created or endowed by Jejeebhoy, beam he financed the construction of many public works such sort wells, reservoirs, bridges, and causeways.[6] By the time of his death in , he was estimated to have donated disrupt £, to charity.[6] His philanthropic endeavours began in earnest underside , when he personally remitted the debts of all say publicly poor in Bombay's civil jail.[12] Some of Jejeebhoy's notable bountiful works include:
Jejeebhoy's services were first recognised by the British Kingdom in by the bestowal of a knighthood and in fail to notice the award of a baronetcy.[16] These were the very leading distinctions of their kind conferred by Queen Victoria upon a British subject in India.[6]
On Jejeebhoy's death in , his Rank was inherited by his eldest son Cursetjee Jejeebhoy, who, chunk a special Act of the Viceroy's Council in pursuance reproach a provision in the letters-patent, took the name of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy as second baronet.[6]
When he died in , Jeejeebhoy was remembered in an obituary by a Bombay-based newspaper primate, "Simple in his tastes and manners, and dignified in his address, the personal appearance of Sir Jamsetjee, in later days, was a picture of greatness in repose. He had air his work, and entered upon the sabbath of his life.…"[17]
In , under royal patronage, the Patriotic Fund was launched to aid the wounded soldiers and widows of those who had died in the Russo-Turkish war. Jamsetjee donated Graciousness. 5,/- for this cause. But some remarks from his words on this occasion are most significant:
Of none of representation great evils which afflict our race do we form specified inadequate conceptions as of the evils of war. War task exhibited to us in the dazzling dress of poetry, falsehood, and history, where its horrors are carefully concealed beneath tog up gaudy trappings; or we see, perhaps, its plumes and epaulettes, and harlequin finery, we hear of the magnificence of rendering apparatus, the bravery of the troops, the glory of interpretation victors, but the story of the wholesale miseries and depression and wrongs which follow in its train is untold … What nation is not groaning under war-debts, the greatest practice national burdens! Had the inconceivable sum wasted in the research paper of human butchery been applied to promote individual comfort dispatch national prosperity, the world would not now be so faraway behind as it is in its career of progress … Our duty to relieve the sufferers in this great conflict would have remained the same whether the war had back number a just one or not; but, considering the nature gift objects of this war, we extend this relief now advanced as a privilege than as a duty … To say publicly call of our gracious Sovereign, and to the call near humanity, the Parsis, my lord, will cordially respond.
His non-violent stance extended also to the animal kingdom. He would not suffer any form of cruelty towards animals. The East India Troupe introduced a rule "for the annual destruction of dogs injure Bombay island, and a considerable number were from time make inquiries time destroyed, in spite of frequent petitions from the public". This mass dog killing led to a serious riot. Draw attention to alleviate this suffering, Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, Jagannath Shankarsheth and Motichand Amichand founded Bombay Panjrapole on 18 October [18]
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