Jeejeebhoy, Sir Jamsetjee

Jeejeebhoy, Sir Jamsetjee a Parsee merchant prince and great philanthropist, who was born of poor parents at Bombay, July 15, 1783, and at the age of twenty had already amassed a fortune which secured him the universal acknowledgment as the "first merchant in the East," spent a good portion of his fortune in the endowment of schools and hospitals. From 1822 to 1858 he is reported to have spent "upwards of a quarter of a million pounds sterling in founding, endowing, or supporting undertakings of a purely benevolent character;" but what is more noteworthy still is that this Parsee merchant by no means confined his charitable efforts to his own confession: Christian, Hindu, and Mussulman also shared the benefits of his magnanimous acts. In 1857

queen Victoria conferred on him the honor of knighthood the first occasion on which that dignity was bestowed on an Eastern. He died April 15,1859.