The merchant who built Bombay: How David Sassoon shaped a global city

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Sassoon Docks, tucked away in the bustling heart of South Mumbai’s Colaba, is a living testament to the city’s maritime soul. Just a stone’s throw from the Gateway of India, it is more than a mere port—it is the fish-scented, beating heart of Mumbai, where history, hustle, and heritage converge in an unforgettable sensory symphony.

Built on reclaimed land in 1875, Sassoon Docks was Mumbai’s first commercial wet dock, a pioneering feat that revolutionized trade. Initially a hub for cotton and silk exports during the American Civil War boom, it allowed Mumbai, then Bombay, to capitalize on the Suez Canal’s opening in 1869, cementing its status as one of the world’s rising global ports. Read this | The forgotten finance minister: RK Shanmukham Chetty and India’s first budget At the center of this transformation was David Sassoon, a visionary Baghdadi Jewish merchant.

Few industrialists of the 19th century have a story as compelling—or as overlooked—as his. Born into wealth in Baghdad in 1792, Sassoon was a scion of the legendary Sassoon family, treasurers to the Ottoman pashas and often described as the Rothschilds of the East. Forced to flee Iraq in 1832 amid persecution of the Jewish community, Sassoon arrived in Mumbai—a city on the cusp of transformation.

With impeccable timing, he positioned himself at the crossroads of the booming cotton and railway industries. Within a decade, he had established offices in Shanghai, Canton, and Hong Kong, tapping into the lucrative opium trade in China, much like the Parsi businessmen of the era. In Mumbai, fuelled by wealth from Chinese markets, Sassoon built a vast business empire, starting with Sassoon Docks, which he later sold to the Bombay