David Sassoon’s Bombay Library

I’m in Bombay for Christmas wandering around so expect a few Bombay-related posts, though I promise I’ll try and keep them linked to China somehow. So first off, linking David Sassoon and China is easy obviously – the scion of the Sassoon family who moved from Baghdad to Bombay and eventually established his opium trading empire in Hong Kong and Shanghai leaving subsequent generations of Sassoon’s, including Sir Victor, rather wealthy and largely Shanghai-based.

Any number of buildings around Bombay, and elsewhere in India such as Calcutta, owe their origins to Sassoon, the effective leader of the Indian Jewish community for a long time as well as a wealthy trader.The Library was actually the idea of David’s son Albert and was a joint project financed by the Sassoon family and the Government of the Bombay Residency. It neighbours several excellent buildings on Rampart Row – one now an upmarket department store and the former Army & Navy and the other Elphinstone College. The library is till in use to members who walk past the statue of Sassoon in the lobby to climb up to the reading rooms or to exit through the back to the sanctuary of a rather dry and small, but welcome in such a densely populated area, garden.

The Library building…

the former Army & Navy, still a department store, next door…

The statue of David Sassoon in the lobby – enter from the street to the statue and then the staircases lead up to the reading rooms for members…

The small back garden which is dry, but tranquil and quiet, and borders Elphinstone College.