Jejeebhoy,

Jejeebhoy, SIR JAMSETJEE (Jamshedji Jijibhai), a Parsee merchant-prince and philanthropist, was born of poor parents at Bombay, 15th July 1783. At an early period he showed a great aptitude for mercantile pursuits, and was taken into partnership by his father-in-law, a Bombay merchant, in 1800. When peace was restored in Europe after the fall of Napoleon the Indian trade with Europe increased enormously, and in this increase these Parsee merchants participated. By 1820 Jejeebhoy had amassed an immense fortune, and now began to exhibit liberality on a magnificent scale. He contributed very generously to various educational and philanthropic institutions in Bombay, as a hospital, a poor asylum, the Parsee Benevolent Institution, and a school of art; built the Mahin Causeway; and paid most of the expenses connected with the construction of the water-works at Poona. Altogether, between 1822 and 1858 he spent upwards of a quarter of a million pounds sterling in undertakings of a purely benevolent character. Parsee and Christian, Hindu and Mussulman, were alike the objects of his beneficence. The Queen knighted him in 1842; and in 1857 he was made a baronet. He died 14th April 1859.