Sassoon David
Indian banker (1849–1926)
Sir Sassoon Jacob Hai David, 1st Baronet, (11 December 1849 – 27 November 1926) was an Indian merchant who was a member of the community of Baghdadi Jews who lived in Bombay from the late 19th century into the 20th century. He was a textile mill-owner and merchant who also became Chairman of the Bank of India.
Life and career
In 1867 Sir Sassoon Jacob Hai David joined the newly formed firm of his father in law, "E.D. Sassoon & Co.", which traded predominantly in India (Bombay, Karachi) and China (Hong Kong, Shanghai). In 1885 he started in Bombay his own firm, "Sassoon J. David & Co., Ltd.", which developed into a leading cotton merchant and opened branches in China (Hong Kong, Shanghai) and Japan (Kobe). But the company also dealt in Indian opium and held the Hong Kong agency for the "South British Insurance Company" (now part of IAG New Zealand).
As a wealthy businessman, he was the lead promoter of the Bank of India, founded in 1906, and became the bank's chairman. He served as Sheriff of Bombay for 1905 and was created a baronet in 1911. He served on the council of the governor general of India, on the Imperial Legislative Council and the Bombay Municipal Corporation for twenty years, becoming its president in 1921. He was made KCSI in the 1922 Birthday Honours.
He partly financed the construction of the arch-monument Gateway of India.
“Sassoon David” enters the record as indian banker (1849–1926). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sassoon, David and Indian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sassoon David” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.