The Tata Family is an Indian business family, based in Mumbai, India. The parent company is Tata Sons, which is the main holding company of the Tata Group. About 65% of the stock in these companies is owned by various Tata family charitable trusts, mainly the Ratan Tata Trust and the Dorab Tata Trust. Approximately 18% of the shares are held by the Pallonji Mistry family, and the rest by various Tata sons.
The Tatas are a Parsis family and originally came to Mumbai from Navsari in the state of Gujarat. The founder of the family's fortune was Jamshedji Tata.[1]
Sir Jamshedji Tata, founder of the Tata GroupSir Jamshedji Tata (3 March 1839 – 19 May 1904), known as one of the fathers of Indian industries.[2] He and his wife Hirabai née Daboo were the parents of a daughter and two sons, being:
Dhunbai Tata, daughter of Jamshedji and Hirabai Tata. Unwed.
Sir Dorabji Tata (27 August 1859 – 3 June 1932), elder son of Jamshedji, Indian industrialist, philanthropist and 2nd Chairman of Tata Group. His wife, Meherbai Tata, was the maternal aunt of nuclear scientist Homi J. Bhabha. The couple did not have children.
Sir Ratanji Tata (20 January 1871 – 5 September 1918), younger son of Jamsetji, philanthropist and pioneer of poverty studies. The couple did not have children. After Ratanji Tata died, his wife, Navajbai Tata, adopted an orphan, Naval, who was the grand-nephew of her mother-in-law, and raised him as her own son. Incidentally, Naval was a Tata by birth, since he was born into a very distant branch of the same broader Tata family to which Jamsetji belonged.
Naval Tata, (30 August 1904 – 5 May 1989) adopted son of Navajbai Tata. His biological maternal grandmother, Cooverbai Rao née Daboo, had been the sister of Hirabai Tata née Daboo, wife of Tata Group founder Jamshedji Tata. Cooverbai Rao's daughter, Ratanbai née Rao, had married Hormusji Tata, who belonged to a distant branch of the broader Tata family. Their son Naval therefore carried the surname "Tata" by birthright. Following the early death of Hormusji, that family had fallen into poverty, and Ratanbai had briefly placed Naval in a Parsi orphanage. When the childless Navajbai Tata discovered that her husband's relatives were living in such poverty, she hastened to help them. She then became fond of the child Naval and, with Ratanbai's consent, she adopted him.[3] Naval Tata served as Director in several Tata companies, was a member of the ILO, and a recipient of Padma Bhushan. He married twice and had three sons.
Soonoo née Commissariat, first wife of Naval Tata. Born into a Parsi family, she married Naval Tata with the approval of both his families (birth and adoptive). She bore Naval two sons, Ratan Tata and the reclusive Jimmy Tata, but the marriage was intensely unhappy and ended in divorce. The fact that none of her children ever married is attributed to the unhappiness they witnessed as children. As early as 1951, she married Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy, 6th Baronet.
Ratan Tata (28 December 1937 – 9 October 2024), 5th Chairman of the Tata Group, son of Naval Tata by his first wife Soonoo Commissariat.
Jimmy Tata, son of Naval Tata by his first wife Soonoo Commissariat.
Simone Tatanée Dunoyer (born 1930), second wife of Naval Tata. A French-speaking Swiss woman and a Catholic, she was twenty-six years younger than Naval Tata. She married him in 1955 and moved to Mumbai. She and Naval have one son, Noel Tata (b. 1957). She ran Lakmé Cosmetics and served as chairperson of Trent (Westside).[4]
Noel Tata, chairperson of Trent, son of Naval Tata by his second wife Simone.
Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (1856–1926), one of the early stalwarts to serve the Tata Group. His father Dadabhoy was brother of Jeevanbai, Jamsetji Tata's mother. Therefore Ratanji was a maternal cousin of Jamsetji and belonged to the broader Tata family. He married Suzanne RD Tata, a French Catholic, and had five children, including:
Sylla Tata, daughter of Ratanji Dadabhoy and elder sister of J.R.D. She was married to Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, 3rd Baronet, who himself was the brother-in-law of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
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