Sassoons everywhere

This is a story that connects Mumbai, Pune, Baghdad, Armenia and Turkey.

Once a year or so, I visit my family back in Pune, in India. Pune has a famous hospital called Sassoon Hospital, and for years I didn’t think anything about it. One day, many years ago, during another visit to Pune, I passed Sassoon Hospital, and I remembered that Mumbai has a famous dock called Sassoon Docks. I wondered if it was the same Sassoon, and if it was named after some random British officer from the times of the British Raj. It turns out that I was wrong - Sassoon Hospital and Sassoon Docks are both named after David Sassoon.

David Sassoon, the merchant

Who was David Sassoon? He was a Baghdadi Jew, and one of the richest merchants in British India in the early 19th century. He fled Baghdad due to a rise in persecution of Jews, and settled down in Bombay. In Bombay, he entered the opium trade. If you remember, Britain had fought a couple of Opium Wars with China, forcing China to legalize opium and allowing Britain & other European powers to sell opium in China. A major chunk of the opium was being grown in India, and the East India Company had a monopoly on the trade. In 1858, the East India Company was disbanded (after the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857), and David Sassoon would take over this profitable yet morally gray opium trade with China.

Even though the Sassoon family was one of the richest in the world during the times of David Sassoon and the generation after him, the family’s name and wealth gradually diminished to the point where their legacy is mostly confined to history books and monuments scattered across the world.

David of Sassoun, a legendary hero of Armenia

Let’s come back closer to the present day, a lazy winter weekday in February 2025. Wikipedia’s front page featured a statue, named after a David of Sassoun! I was pleasantly surprised to see Sassoun, and I wondered if it was somehow connected to David Sassoon. It turned out that the statue of David of Sassoun was of a legendary Armenian Hero named David of Sassoun. One of Armenia’s popular national epics is called Daredevils of Sassoun, whose main hero is David of Sassoun.

I have long been fascinated by Armenia, a small country in the Caucacus Region, with a history stretching thousands of years. Dvin, Tushpa, Yervandashat, Vagharshapat, Kars, Ani - these are some of Armenia’s ancient capitals over the past three thousand years. I blogged about Ani, one of the capitals, many years ago.

Sasun is a historical region of Ancient Armenia with great importance to their national legends and heroes. Today, the region would be in Modern Turkey, and the only remains of this old region is a tiny town named Sason, in the Batman province of Turkey.

Is there a connection?

Is there any connection between David Sassoon the merchant who ruled Bombay and Armenia’s David of Sassoun? We know Sasun is a historical region of Ancient Armenia. However, Sassoon may also mean ‘joy’ in Hebrew, and it is likely that the names are simply a coincidence. If I am wrong, and you do know there is a connection, please do let me know!

The David Sassoon family

• Professor Joseph Sassoon has a book about the David Sassoon family - he talks about how they set up shop in Bombay and eventually expanded to Shanghai, London & Hong Kong. New Books Network has a great podcast about the book at https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-sassoons
• Siegfried Sassoon was a famous British war poet, and the grandson of David Sassoon