Framjee Nasarwanjee Patel

Who was Framjee Nasarwanjee Patel?

Framjee Nasarwanjee Patel, Parsee merchant and philanthropist, was born in 1804, and had a sound vernacular education, with a smattering of English received in Bombay. At the age of fifteen he entered upon a business career, and its pursuit proved so congenial that by 1827 he had worked his way to a partnership in the firm of Frith, Bomanjee & Co. Banking facilities being then exceedingly scanty, such Parsees as had any capital at command acted as bankers and brokers to the rising English firms.

Patel's experience enabled him in a few years to raise the status of his compatriots to the higher level of independent merchants, and he founded in 1844 a business house under the name of Wallace & Co., in which he was himself a partner with the English members of the firm. When he retired in 1858 he had amassed a large competence, and in the following year he established a firm on the same lines under the style of Framjee, Sands & Co., of which the members were some of his sons, together with English partners.

It was, however, not so much for his success as a merchant, as for his spirit and liberality as an educationist, reformer and philanthropist, that his name is notable in the annals of western India. He entered on his civic labors in 1837, and in all public movements figured prominently as an accredited representative of his community. As a pioneer of education, both for boys and girls, his example inspired the younger men of his time, like Dadabhai Naoroji, at one time Member of Parliament for Finsbury Central, and Naoroji Fardoonjee and Sorabjee Shapurjee Bengallee.