Dwarkanath Tagore

Dwarakanath Tagore was a descendant of Brahmins of the Kushari division. They were called Pirali Brahmin - the word "Pirali" comes from Pir Ali, a convert to Islam who supposedly dined with and converted two Tagore ancestors. Their relatives, still Hindus, were tainted by association and got the name "Pirali Brahmin".{{citation | last1=Thompson | first1=E Jr. |year=1926 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist |publisher=Read |isbn=1-4067-8927-5 |page=12 |quote=The [Tagores] are Pirili Brahmans [sic]; that is, outcastes, as having supposedly eaten with Musalmans in a former day. No strictly orthodox Brahman would eat or inter-marry with them. }}{{cite book |last1=Dutta |first1=K. |last2=Robinson |first2=A. |author2-link=W. Andrew Robinson |year=1995 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man |publisher=Saint Martin's Press |pages=17–18 |isbn=978-0-312-14030-4}}

Dwarakanath's great grandfather Jairam Tagore made a large fortune as a merchant and as Dewan to the French government at Chandannagar. He shifted from Gobindapur to Pathuriaghata, when the British constructed the new Fort William in the mid-eighteenth century. His eldest son, Nilmoni Tagore (b.1721 - d.1791), with his wife Lalita Devi and sons, settled at Jorasanko after leaving the ancestral house at Pathuriaghata following a rift with his younger brother Darpanarayan Tagore. Nilmoni Tagore built the Jorasanko Thakur Bari where the Jorasanko branch of the family dwelled, while Darpanarayan Tagore's descendants belonged to the Pathuriaghata Tagore branch.{{cite book|author=James Wyburd Furrell|title=The Tagore Family: A Memoir|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h3gOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA17|accessdate=5 April 2017|year=1882|publisher=K. Paul, Trench, & Company|page=17}}

Nilmoni's grandson, Dwarakanath Tagore, was born in 1794 to Rammoni Tagore and his wife Menaka Devi. Soon after birth, he was given in adoption to Rammoni's childless elder brother Ramlochan (b.1759 - d.1807), a rich man of his time and a patron of music. Menaka Devi was the younger sister of Dwarakanath's adoptive mother Aloka Sundari Devi.{{cite book|title=Thakurbarir Bahirmahal|author=Chitra Deb|publisher=Ananda|year=2018}}

Dwarakanath studied at the English-medium school of Mr. Sherbourne. In 1807, Ramlochan died leaving a considerable inheritance in trust to Dwarakanath, who was then a minor aged 13. This property consisted of the zamindari Berhampore, estates in Orissa, and urban holdings in Calcutta.{{Cite book |last=Kling |first=Blair B. |title=Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KVBKeqaYeVwC |year=1976 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=0-520-02927-5 |page=15}} Dwarakanath left school in 1810 at the age of 16 and apprenticed himself under renowned barrister, Robert Cutlar Fergusson and traveled between Calcutta and his estates at Behrampore and Cuttack.{{cite book |last1=Kripalani |first1=Krishna |title=Dwarkanath Tagore A Forgotten Pioneer, a Life |publisher=National Book Trust India |isbn=978-812-373-488-0 |pages=305 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dwarkanath_Tagore/yoMeAAAAMAAJ?hl=en |access-date=26 May 2025}}

File:Dwarkanath Tagore National Library.png.]]

At the age of 17, Dwarakanath married the 9 years old Digambari Devi, daughter of a zamindar from near Jessore, in 1811. They had 4 sons and 1 daughter - among whom 3 survived - Debendranath Tagore (b.1817), Girindranath Tagore (b.1820 - d.1854) and Nagendranath Tagore (b.1829 - d.1858). As Dwarakanath started leading an extravagant lifestyle, his married life with his orthodox Hindu wife got strained. She consulted with Hindu Brahmins regarding his behaviour and finally decided to stop interaction with her husband. Whenever she had to speak to him regarding household matters, she used to take a bath in the holy Ganges water. It continued this way for some time. However, after taking such a bath in a cold winter night, Digambari caught fever, and died in 1839 at the age of 37.{{cite book|title=Thakurbarir Andarmahal|author=Chitra Deb|publisher=Ananda Publishers}}

File:Dwarakanath Thakur.jpg

Tagore was a western-educated Bengali Brahmin and a civic leader of Calcutta who played a pioneering role in setting up a string of commercial ventures—banking, insurance, and shipping companies—in partnership with British traders. In 1828, he became the first Indian bank director. In 1829, he founded Union Bank in Calcutta. He helped found the first Anglo-Indian managing agency (industrial organizations that ran jute mills, coal mines, tea plantations, etc.,{{cite book |last1=Kulke |first1=Hermann |author-link1=Hermann Kulke |last2=Rothermund |first2=Dietmar |author-link2=Dietmar Rothermund |title=A History of India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V73N8js5ZgAC&pg=PA265 |access-date=18 September 2011 |year=2004 |orig-year=First published 1986 |edition=4th |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-32920-5 |page=265}}) Carr, Tagore and Company. (Earlier, Rustomjee Cowasjee, a Parsi in Calcutta, had formed an inter-racial firm, but in the early 19th century Parsis were classified as a Near Eastern community as opposed to South Asian.)

Tagore's company managed large zamindari estates spread across today's West Bengal and Odisha states in India, and in Bangladesh, and held stakes in new enterprises that were tapping the rich coal seams of Bengal, running tug services between Calcutta and the mouth of the river Hooghly, and growing tea in Assam.{{Cite book |last=Kling |first=Blair B. |title=Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KVBKeqaYeVwC |year=1976 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=0-520-02927-5 |pages=94, 123–124, 144–145}}

Carr, Tagore and Company was also engaged in shipping opium to China.{{Cite book |last=Kling |first=Blair B. |title=Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KVBKeqaYeVwC |year=1976 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=0-520-02927-5 |pages=90–91}}

File:Portrait_of_Dwarakanath_Tagore.jpg]]

In 1832, Tagore purchased a coal mine at Raniganj, the oldest, largest, and richest coal mine in India. It eventually became the Bengal Coal Company.{{Cite book |last=Kling |first=Blair B. |title=Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KVBKeqaYeVwC |year=1976 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=0-520-02927-5 |pages=94, 101}}

File:Monument of Dwarkanath Tagore at London.png

File:Commemoration at Kensal Green Cemetery on 11 August 2018.jpg

Dwarakanath Tagore died "at the peak of his fortune"{{cite book |last=Wolpert |first=Stanley |author-link=Stanley Wolpert |year=2009 |orig-year=First published 1077 |title=A New History of India |url=https://archive.org/details/newhistoryofindi0000wolp_i0v9/page/221/mode/1up |edition=8th |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=221 |isbn=978-0-19-533756-3}} on the evening of 1 August 1846 at the St. George's Hotel in London.

In his obituary, The London Mail newspaper of 7 August wrote:

{{blockquote|text=Descended from the highest Brahmin caste of India his family can prove a long and undoubted pedigree. But it is not on account of this nobility that we now review his life but on far better grounds. However gifted, his claims rest on a higher pedestal – he was the benefactor of his country... They testified to his merits in the encouragement of every public and private undertaking likely to benefit India.{{cite book|last=Kripalani|first=Krishna|title=Dwarkanath Tagore, A Forgotten Pioneer: A Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yoMeAAAAMAAJ|year=1981|publisher=National Book Trust, India|location=New Delhi, India|pages=246–7|isbn=978-81-237-3488-0 }}

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{{main|Tagore_family#Family_tree}}

{{Reflist|40em}}

• NK Sinha, The Economic History of Bengal 1793–1848, III, Calcutta, 1984.
• Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali (editors), 1976/1998, Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Biographical dictionary) Vol I, {{in lang|bn}}, pp. 223. {{ISBN|81-85626-65-0}}

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• {{Internet Archive author}}
• {{cite book |last=Islam |first=Sirajul |year=2012 |chapter=Tagore, Prince Dwarkanath |chapter-url=http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Tagore,_Prince_Dwarkanath |editor1-last=Islam |editor1-first=Sirajul |editor1-link=Sirajul Islam |editor2-last=Jamal |editor2-first=Ahmed A. |title=Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh |edition=Second |publisher=Asiatic Society of Bangladesh}}

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{{Tagore family}}

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Category:1794 births

Category:1846 deaths

Category:People from the Bengal Presidency

Category:Industrialists from British India

Category:Bengali zamindars

Category:Businesspeople from Kolkata

Category:Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery

Dwarkanath

Category:Indian businesspeople in coal

Category:Bengali Hindus

Category:Indian businesspeople in mining

Category:Indian businesspeople in textiles

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Category:Indian social workers

Category:Social workers from West Bengal