Jamesetjee Nusserwanjee Tata
Jamesetjee Nusserwanjee Tata (c1839-1904)
Founder of Tata
1868 Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata started a trading company — the early beginnings of what would one day become the Tata group.
1874 He established a textile mill in Nagpur instead of Bombay — India's textile hub. The Empress Mills experiment would prove to be a stroke of genius.
1903 Opened the Taj Mahal Hotel.
His 2 sons, Dorabji Tata and Ratanji Tata, continued the business as Tata Sons
1904 Obituary [1]
JAMSETJEE NUSSERWANJEE TATA died on May 19, 1904, at Bad Nauheim. He was a well-known millionaire and philanthropist of Bombay, and he devoted a considerable portion of the large fortune which he had acquired to public objects intended for the benefit of the people of India and for the development of Indian industrial resources. He also spent large sums of money in endeavouring to improve the staple of Indian cotton, and also on the improvement of sericulture in Mysore, and offered the Government of India, on certain conditions, the enormous sum of £150,000 for the endowment of research. The conditions of the offer were such as, up to the present date, to prevent the Government from accepting it. It is, however, understood that the offer is still open, the amount of the endowment being left in the hands of trustees, who have power to negotiate with the Government of India for its application.
He enjoyed a very high reputation among both his fellow-countrymen and Anglo-Indians for his liberality, and the assistance he was always ready to give to useful charities will be greatly missed.
He was a member of the Society of Arts, and was elected a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1902.