184th Birth Anniversary of Jamsetji Tata: A look back at his life and legacy
March 3, 2023 marks the 184th birth anniversary of Tata group founder Jamsetji Tata, regarded as the legendary "Father of Indian Industry". He also established the city of Jamshedpur. Out of his many achievements, Tata is particularly notable for the Tata Iron and Steel Works company in Jamshedpur.
March 3, 2023 marks the 184th birth anniversary of Tata group founder Jamsetji Tata. Born on March 3, 1839, in Navsari town of Gujarat, Jamsetji was the first child and only son of Nusserwanji Tata, the scion of a family of Parsee priests. Many generations of the Tatas had joined the priesthood, but the enterprising Nusserwanji broke the mould, becoming the first member of the family to try his hand at business. (Image: Tata)
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Raised in Navsari, Jamsetji joined his father in Bombay when he was 14. Nusserwanji got him enrolled at Elphinstone College, from where he passed in 1858 as a 'green scholar', the equivalent of today's graduate. The liberal education he received would fuel in Jamsetji a lifelong admiration for academics and a love of reading. Those passions would, though, soon take a backseat to what Jamsetji quickly understood was the true calling of life: business. (Image: Tata)
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In 1868, aged 29 and wiser for the experience garnered by nine years of working with his father, Jamsetji started a trading company with a capital of Rs 21,000. His first expedition to England soon followed, where he learnt about the textile business. Jamsetji made his move into textiles in 1869. He acquired a dilapidated and bankrupt oil mill in Chinchpokli, in the industrial heart of Bombay, renamed the property Alexandra Mill and converted it into a cotton mill. Two years later, Jamsetji sold the mill for a significant profit to a local cotton merchant. (Image: Tata)
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The iron and steel idea got sparked when Jamsetji, on a trip to Manchester to check out new machinery for his textile mill, attended a lecture by Thomas Carlyle. By the early 1880s, he had set his heart on building a steel plant that would compare with the best of its kind in the world. Indian pioneer industrialist and philanthropist Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata began with a textile mill in central India in the 1970s. His vision inspired the steel and power industries in India, set the foundation for technical education, and helped the country take a place amongst the industrialised nations.
He had four goals in life: setting up an iron and steel company, a world-class learning institution, a unique hotel and a hydroelectric plant. Only the hotel became a reality during his lifetime, with the inauguration of the Taj Mahal Hotel at Colaba waterfront in Mumbai on 3 December 1903. At that time it was the only hotel in India to have electricity. (Image: Tata)
