Dadibhai Noshirwanji Dadyseth

He was a Parsi philanthropist and a wealthy merchant, with his own fleet of five large vessels. He traded extensively with Europe, Bengal, and China, dealing principally in cotton, and was the first Indian to build a screw for pressing cotton into bales.

His given name was Dadi, -bhai being a courtesy addition, Seth a later honorific. He came to be known popularly as the “Great Dadyseth”, and his descendants adopted Dadyseth as the family surname.

His father was a freight broker and, as was usual then in Parsi lay families, gave his son little formal education, training him instead in his own line of business. Dadibhai soon raised himself to be a wealthy merchant, with his own fleet of five large vessels. He traded extensively with Europe, Bengal, and China, dealing principally in cotton, and was the first Indian to build a screw for pressing cotton into bales. His philanthropy extended beyond his own community, and during the great famine in Gujarat in 1790-91, which drove many to seek relief in Bombay, he with two other Parsi merchants provided all the Parsis among them with food and clothing for ten months and at the same time cared for 2,000 Hindus and Muslims.

As a member of the Bombay Parsi Panchayat Dadyseth was active in the general affairs of his own community. He also made several important religious benefactions. In 1771 he founded the Dadyseth Agiary. Eight years later Mulla Kaus persuaded him to join the Kadmi movement (started in Surat in 1746) and in due course to found and endow the Dadyseth Ātaš Bahrām to serve the Kadmis in Bombay. Dadyseth further gave land free of cost to Hindus for building temples and rest houses. In his will he left individual legacies to his twelve faithful black servants and concluded with this characteristic advice to his son: “if anyone did you harm, you should repay evil with good”.