Jamsetji Tata

He went on a business trip to Germany in 1900 and became seriously ill there. He died on 19 May 1904 in Nauheim, Germany.

He was born on 3 March 1839 to Nusserwanji and Jeevanbai Tata in a small town in South Gujarat, India. He hailed from a family of priests.

Even as a young boy he displayed great ambitions and had a strong will-power. It was expected that he too would become a priest, but he rebelled as he had set his eyes elsewhere.

He went to Bombay (now Mumbai) when he was 14 and enrolled at the Elphinstone College and completed his education as a “Green Scholar”—equivalent to today’s graduation—in 1858.

He joined his father’s trading firm after graduation in 1858. The year 1858 was a turbulent one in India as the country was still shaken by the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

His father owned an export-trading firm and even though it was a difficult time for business, Jamsetji worked hard and helped to establish its branches in Japan, China, Europe and the United States.

He traveled extensively all over the world while trying to expand his father’s business and as a result acquired a lot of valuable knowledge and experience. He realized that there was tremendous scope for Indian companies to develop and compete with the British dominated industries.

He founded a trading company in 1868 which would eventually evolve into the Tata Group. The next year he bought a bankrupt mill at Chinchpokli and renamed it as Alexandra Mill which he sold two years later for a profit.

He was very much interested in the textile industry and set up a cotton mill at Nagpur in 1874. When Queen Victoria was proclaimed the Empress of India in 1877, he christened the mill “Empress Mill”.

He is best remembered for forming the Tata Group which is today India's largest business group and multinational company. The company which was founded as a trading concern in 1868 presently has over 100 operating companies including Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tata Power, and Tata Chemicals.