Piroshaw Bomanjee Jeejeebhoy
Piroshaw Bomanjee Jeejeebhoy (1856-1913)
1913 Obituary [1]
PIROSHAW BOMANJEE JEEJEEBHOY was born at Bombay on 19th December 1856, being descended from the Jeejeebhoy Dadabhoy family, one of the oldest Parsee families.
He was educated at the Proprietary High School of Bombay, and was one of the few students that matriculated in English.
Being of a mechanical turn of mind, he became an apprentice in the weaving department of the Great Eastern Spinning and Weaving Mills Co., at the age of sixteen. The mill industry of India at that time was in its infancy, and Bombay was the only place that contained a few mills of a modern type.
On the completion of his apprenticeship, he was appointed in 1877 head of the weaving department of the Mazagon Spinning and Weaving Mills, and several looms were erected and started under his supervision.
Six years later he resigned this position to superintend the erection of the Gordon Spinning and Weaving Mills Co., and subsequently was apprenticed in the same mills in the carding and spinning departments. He also supervised the erection of the greater part of the machinery in these mills.
Having obtained a thorough knowledge of the carding, spinning, and weaving departmental of the mill industry, he determined to study the engineering department; and as there were no suitable engineering works in India, he came to England, where he studied as an apprentice for five years at Messrs. Hick, Hargreaves and Co.'s Soho Iron Works, Bolton.
Having returned to Bombay with a First Class Engineer's Certificate, he was at once appointed manager of the Sassoon Spinning and Weaving Mills Co., which he brought to a high state of efficiency.
In 1896 he resigned his post, and became manager of both the Mazagon Spinning and Weaving Mills Co. and the Framji Petit Spinning and Weaving Mills Co. Such was the demand for his services that, immediately after his appointment, he was offered a high post in the Excise Department, which however he declined.
In 1903 he retired from business. Soon after he gradually became ill, and underwent two operations for cancer, but his death ensued on 6th August 1913, in his fifty-seventh year, at his residence in Bombay.
He was elected a Member of this Institution in 1888.