David Sassoon

Merchant and industrialist
David Sassoon was born in Baghdad to Saleh Sassoon and Amam Gabbai. His father was a wealthy businessman, chief treasurer to the pashas (the governors of Baghdad), and president (Nasi) of the city's Jewish community. David succeeded his father as chief treasurer but because of the oppression from the Daud Pasha (1817 – 1831) he left Baghdad and settled in Bombay in 1832.

At first Sassoon began by exporting English textiles from Bombay to Persia, Iraq, and nearby lands, and importing products and textiles of those countries to be resold to the British in India. The firm prospered on his familiarity with local countries, conditions, and languages, his reliable Jewish correspondents, and his firm’s reputation for absolute integrity. Soon the firm extended into Central Asia and southern China, trading in Bombay yarn English piece-goods, and opium. The house of David Sassoon & Company ultimately had branches at Bombay, Shanghai, Canton, and Hongkong, and its business extended as far as Yokohama, Nagasaki, and other cities in Japan.

David Sassoon was a great philanthropist who donated much to different charitable causes. In Bombay he built and munificently endowed a splendid synagogue and established a Talmud Torah school, and at Puna, his summer residence, he built another handsome synagogue. He donated for the poor, for the widows and orphans of those killed during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and helped during several famines in different towns. He also donated for several medical institutions.