Elias David Sassoon

Elias David Sassoon (1820-1880), second son of David Sassoon, was born in Baghdad into a Baghdadi Jewish family and was one of fourteen children. After the First Opium War his father sent him, at twenty-four, to look for openings in China: he landed at Canton in 1844 and moved the next year to Shanghai, judging that the business would be there. He built the family's China trade, which at its height carried about a fifth of all the opium imported into the country, sold alongside British textiles and exchanged for silk, tea and silver.

In the 1850s he and his elder brother Albert became partners with their father. When their father died in 1864 and Albert was made head of the family, Elias resented it, and in 1867 he broke away to found his own house, E. D. Sassoon & Co., which became a rival to the parent firm and outlasted it.