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The Sassoons’ Shanghai business grew from a commercial base David Sassoon established in Bombay, but it was never one unchanged firm under one command. Family members and trusted agents extended the network into Chinese ports; after a succession dispute, Elias David Sassoon built a competing company. Later, Victor Sassoon shifted much of the family’s activity toward Shanghai real estate and finance. The story spans cotton, opium, manufacturing and property—and depended on an imperial order that opened China’s treaty ports on unequal terms.
Bombay was the base for an outward-facing family business
David Sassoon, a member of a Baghdadi Jewish merchant family, settled in Bombay in 1832 and established David Sassoon & Co. The firm developed branches and commercial connections across Asian ports, including Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong. Bombay was its center of gravity, not the only place where Sassoon businesses operated.
The family’s reach rested in part on people. Sons and trusted employees could supervise distant branches and carry information between markets, helping connect activity in China to the Bombay base. Elias David Sassoon was sent to China in 1844 and became an important supervisor of the China business. This was a network of family members, agents and related firms, rather than a modern multinational directed through a single permanent headquarters.
Shanghai trade grew within a coercive imperial system
The Sassoons traded in several commodities, including cotton and opium. The China trade cannot be separated from the political force behind foreign access to Chinese markets. The Jewish Museum’s account of the family places its expansion in the aftermath of the First Opium War: the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing opened five treaty ports, including Shanghai, to foreign merchants. British imports of Indian opium and the unequal terms imposed on China were part of the conditions that enabled this trade.
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That context complicates any account of the Sassoons’ success as a story of business ingenuity alone. The family built commercial connections and deployed people effectively, but the China market they entered had been opened through war and unequal treaties. Opium was not incidental to that wider system.
David Sassoon’s death divided the family business
After David Sassoon died, his older sons Abdullah—also known as Albert—and Elias disagreed over control. Elias left the senior family firm and established E. D. Sassoon & Co. The split created two competing Sassoon enterprises, so later references to a single “Sassoon empire” can conceal distinct firms and lines of control.
| Phase | Business form | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| David Sassoon’s generation | David Sassoon & Co., based in Bombay, with branches and agents in Asian ports | Commodity trading connected Bombay to Shanghai and other markets. |
| After the succession dispute | David Sassoon & Co. and Elias’s E. D. Sassoon & Co. | A family disagreement produced competing firms rather than one continuous command structure. |
| Victor Sassoon’s interwar period | Trading and banking interests alongside Shanghai property investment | The family’s activity included substantial real estate and hotel development, not only commodity trade. |
Bombay investments extended beyond overseas trade
The family also invested in Bombay’s port and textile economy. The municipal heritage profile describes Abdullah (Albert) Sassoon’s involvement in cotton mills and financing the wet dock known as Sassoon Dock. These activities linked the family’s fortunes to local manufacturing and port infrastructure as well as overseas commerce.
David Sassoon also supported community institutions, including a synagogue and a school, as well as charitable work. Joseph Sassoon, writing for Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, describes a family practice in these words: “The founder of the dynasty, David, had established the rule that in every trade a ‘tax’ should be collected to be given to charitable causes.”
Victor Sassoon made Shanghai property central to a later phase
Victor Sassoon belongs to a later chapter than the nineteenth-century opening of the China trade. The University of Chicago Press says he gained control of the family’s trading and banking empire in 1924. Rosemary Wakeman’s The Worlds of Victor Sassoon: Bombay, London, Shanghai, 1918–1941 traces the connections among trade, finance, people and capital across those three cities.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Victor transferred substantial wealth from India to Shanghai, according to SMU Libraries’ description of his archival collection. He acquired Cathay Land Company and built the Cathay Hotel in 1929; the hotel was later called the Peace Hotel. This was a shift in emphasis from nineteenth-century commodity trading toward interwar property and finance, though it did not erase the earlier business lines.
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War and political change ended the China position
Victor left Shanghai in 1941 amid the war with Japan. SMU Libraries says he sold his China interests after the Communist Revolution of 1949. Joseph Sassoon’s Georgetown account places these events within a broader decline in the family’s fortunes and connects losses in the Far East business to political change and nationalization.
The end of the Sassoon position in China was therefore not the result of one event alone. War, the political transformation of China, and business decisions made over time all shaped what the family could retain. The network that had linked Bombay to Shanghai changed form across generations—and ultimately lost its China foothold.
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