Sake Dean Mahomed (1759–1851) was an Bengali traveller, surgeon, entrepreneur, and one of the most notable early non-European immigrants to the
Western World
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. . Due to non-standard
transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...
, his name is often spelled in various ways. His high social status meant that he adopted the
honorific
An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It ...
"Sake" (
Sheikh
Sheikh (pronounced or ; ar, شيخ ' , mostly pronounced , plural ' )—also transliterated sheekh, sheyikh, shaykh, shayk, shekh, shaik and Shaikh, shak—is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates a chief of a ...
) meaning "venerable one". Mahomed introduced
Indian cuisine
Indian cuisine consists of a variety of regional and traditional cuisines native to India. Given the diversity in soil, climate, culture, ethnic groups, and occupations, these cuisines vary substantially and use locally available spices, he ...
and
shampoo
Shampoo () is a hair care product, typically in the form of a viscous liquid, that is used for cleaning hair. Less commonly, shampoo is available in solid bar format. Shampoo is used by applying it to wet hair, massaging the product into the ...
baths to
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, where he offered therapeutic massage. He was also the first Indian to publish a
book in English.
Early life
Born in May 1759 in the city of
Patna
Patna (
), historically known as Pataliputra, is the capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Patna had a population of 2.35 million, making it the 19th largest city in India. ...
, then part of the
Bengal Presidency
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and ...
in
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
, he was from a
Bengali Muslim
Bengali Muslims ( bn, বাঙালি মুসলমান; ) are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. Comprising about two-thirds of the global Bengali population, they are the sec ...
family. He claimed to be related to the
Nawabs of Bengal
The Nawab of Bengal ( bn, বাংলার নবাব) was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the ''de facto'' independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar, ...
, and that he had ancestors who worked in administrative service under the
Mughal Emperors
The Mughal emperors ( fa, , Pādishāhān) were the supreme heads of state of the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent, mainly corresponding to the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The Mughal rulers styled t ...
. Sake Dean Mahomed grew up in Patna. His father served in the
East India Company's Bengal Army and died in battle when Mahomed was about 11 years old. Following his father's death, he was taken under the wing of Captain Godfrey Evan Baker, an
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
officer. Mahomed served in the army of the East India Company as a trainee surgeon and against the
Marathas
The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a M ...
. He remained with Captain Baker until 1782, when the Captain resigned. That same year, Mahomed also resigned from the Army, choosing to accompany Baker, 'his best friend', to Ireland.
Adult life and family
In 1784, Mahomed emigrated to
Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
, Ireland, with the Baker family.
There he studied to improve his English language skills at a local school, and fell in love with Jane Daly, a "pretty Irish girl of respectable parentage". The Daly family was opposed to their relationship because it was illegal for Protestants to marry non-Protestants at the time, so the couple eloped to another town to get married.
Mahomed and Daly were married in the
Diocese of Cork & Ross in Cork.
They moved to 7 Little Ryder Street in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, England, at the turn of the 19th century."
In 1786, Mahomed converted from
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
to
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
.
According to leading scholars, and as indicated by parish records in London, Mahomed contracted a bigamous marriage in Marylebone in 1806 to Jane Jeffreys (1780-1850); the banns were read on 24 August for Jane and "William Mahomet."
He had a daughter, Amelia (b. 1808) by her and is listed as the father "William Dean Mahomet" in the parish register.
Amelia was baptised on 11 June 1809 at St Marylebone, Westminster, in London.
By his legal wife, Sake Dean Mahomed had seven children: Rosanna, Henry, Horatio, Frederick, Arthur, and Dean Mahomed (baptised in the Roman Catholic church of St. Finbarr's, Cork, in 1791).
His son, Frederick, was a proprietor of
Turkish bath
A hammam ( ar, حمّام, translit=ḥammām, tr, hamam) or Turkish bath is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited ...
s at Brighton
and also ran a
boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...
and
fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...
academy near Brighton. His most famous grandson,
Frederick Henry Horatio Akbar Mahomed (c. 1849–1884), became an internationally known physician and worked at
Guy's Hospital
Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre.
...
in London. He made important contributions to the study of
high blood pressure
Hypertension (HTN or HT), also known as high blood pressure (HBP), is a long-term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated. High blood pressure usually does not cause symptoms. Long-term high bl ...
. Another of Sake Dean Mahomed's grandsons, Rev. James Keriman Mahomed, was appointed as the
vicar
A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...
of
Hove
Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...
, Sussex, in the late 19th century. James married
Emma Louisa Black, a flower painter whose work was displayed at the Royal Academy. Together they had a son,
RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
Captain Felix Wyatt. Felix was killed in action during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
after he was shot down whilst flying over France. During the war,
Frederick Frederick may refer to:
People
* Frederick (given name), the name
Nobility
Anhalt-Harzgerode
*Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670)
Austria
* Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198
* Frederick ...
and James' children changed their surnames from Mahomed to Deane and Wyatt, respectively, in order to avoid
xenophobic
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
attention at a time when
racial prejudice
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
was rife and
mixed marriages were disapproved of.
''The Travels of Dean Mahomet''
![The Travels Of Dean Mahomet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/The_Travels_Of_Dean_Mahomet.png)
On 15 January 1794, Mahomed published a book titled ''The Travels of Dean Mahomet''. The book is in
epistolary
Epistolary means "in the form of a letter or letters", and may refer to:
* Epistolary ( la, epistolarium), a Christian liturgical book containing set readings for church services from the New Testament Epistles
* Epistolary novel
* Epistolary poem ...
form as was common for travel books and many novels in that era and consists of 38 letters. The book begins with a brief introduction where he contrasts Ireland and India, writing that "the face of every thing about me
sso contrasted to those ''striking scenes'' in India." and proceeds to give a sketch of his early years. He then describes his travels over the period 1770 to 1775 as a camp follower to the Bengal army as it moved around North East
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. A series of military conflicts are described along with descriptions of some major cities, including
Kolkata (Calcutta) and
Varanasi (Benares). This is accompanied by first hand accounts of Indian culture, trade, military conflicts, food, wildlife, etc. The book concludes with a description of Mahomed's voyage to Britain where he arrived at
Dartmouth in September 1784. While Mahomed gives an insightful and sympathetic account of India and Indian customs, as Mona Narain points out this is done from an essentially European cultural perspective - he consistently uses the pronoun "we" to describe himself and Europeans, and does not in his writings seek to challenge poor governmental management within the East India Company. The historian Michael Fisher, who published a biographical essay to accompany an edition of the book, suggested that some passages in the book were closely paraphrased from other travel narratives written in the late 18th century.
Restaurant venture
![Hindoostane Coffee House (7599806070)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Hindoostane_Coffee_House_%287599806070%29.jpg)
In 1810, after moving to London, Sake Dean Mahomed opened the first
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
restaurant in England: the
Hindoostane Coffee House
The Hindoostane Coffee House, opened at 34 George Street, London in 1810, was an Indian restaurant, and the first of its kind in the British Isles. It was founded by Sake Dean Mahomed, a former captain in the British East India Company's Bombay A ...
in George Street, near
Portman Square
Portman Square is a garden square in Marylebone, central London, surrounded by elegant townhouses. It was specifically for private housing let on long leases having a ground rent by the Portman Estate, which owns the private communal garden ...
,
Central London
Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...
.
The restaurant offered, among other items,
hookah
A hookah (Hindustani language, Hindustani: (Nastaleeq), (Devanagari), IPA: ; also see #Names and etymology, other names), shisha, or waterpipe is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for heating or vaporizing and then smoking either tobacco ...
"with real
chilm tobacco, and Indian dishes, ... allowed by the greatest epicures to be unequalled to any curries ever made in England." The restaurant also provided a home delivery service. This venture came to an end in 1812 due to financial difficulties.
Introduction of shampooing to Europe
Before opening his restaurant, Mahomed had worked in London for
nabob
A nabob is a conspicuously wealthy man deriving his fortune in the east, especially in India during the 18th century with the privately held East India Company.
Etymology
''Nabob'' is an Anglo-Indian term that came to English from Urdu, poss ...
Basil Cochrane
Basil Cochrane (22 April 1753 – 12 or 14 August 1826 in Paris, France) was a Scottish civil servant, businessman, inventor, and wealthy nabob of early-19th-century England.
Early life
The sixth son of Scottish nobleman and politician Thomas ...
, who had installed a steam bath for public use in his house in
Portman Square
Portman Square is a garden square in Marylebone, central London, surrounded by elegant townhouses. It was specifically for private housing let on long leases having a ground rent by the Portman Estate, which owns the private communal garden ...
and promoted its medical benefits. Once again indicating his acceptance by the wealthy elite, Mahomed and his family lived alongside the rich and titled in Portman Square and Mahomed may have been responsible for introducing the practice of "champi" or "
shampooing" (or Indian massage) there. In 1814, Mahomed and his family moved back to Brighton and opened the first commercial "shampooing" vapour masseur bath in England, "Mahomed's Baths", on the site now occupied by the Queen's Hotel. Located on the seafront, the luxurious bathhouse offered therapeutic baths and shampooing with Indian oils. He described the treatment in a local paper as "The Indian Medicated Vapour Bath (type of Turkish bath), a cure to many diseases and giving full relief when every thing fails; particularly Rheumatic and paralytic, gout, stiff joints, old sprains, lame legs, aches and pains in the joints".
Jane Daly, Mahomed's wife, was also actively involved in the bathhouse business. Adverts suggested that, like her husband, Jane possessed "the art of shampooing" and that she superintended the Ladies Baths. The business was an immediate success and Dean Mahomed became known as "Dr. Brighton". Hospitals referred patients to him and he was appointed as shampooing surgeon to both King
George IV
George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...
and
William IV
William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...
. Due to a lack of capital, however, Mahomed's Baths was put up for auction in the late 1830s and Mahomed and his family were forced to relocate to more modest accommodation in Brighton.
![Queens Hotel Blue Plaque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Queens_Hotel_Blue_Plaque.jpg)
The literary critic
Muneeza Shamsie
Muneeza Shamsie (born 1944) is a Pakistani writer, critic, literary journalist, bibliographer and editor. She is the author of a literary history ''Hybrid Tapestries: The Development of Pakistani English Literature'' (Oxford University Press) ...
notes that Mahomed wrote two books connected to his burgeoning trade. The first was ''Cases Cured by Sake Deen Mahomed, Shampooing Surgeon, and Inventor of the Indian Medicated Vapour and Sea-Water Bath'' (1820), while the second, ''Shampooing; or, benefits resulting from the use of the Indian medicated vapour bath,'' went through three editions ''(''1822, 1826, 1838) and was dedicated to King George IV. In this work, Mahomed speaks of the initial resistance to the idea of shampooing among the English he encountered in his new country: "It is not in the power of any individual to give unqualified satisfaction, or to attempt to establish a new opinion without the risk of incurring the ridicule, as well as censure, of some portion of mankind. So it was with me: in the face of indisputable evidence, I had to struggle with doubts and objections raised and circulated against my Bath, which, but for the repeated and numerous cures effected by it, would long since have shared the common fate of most innovations in science."
Death
![Monument To Sake Deen Mahomed, St Nicholas' Church, Dyke Road, Brighton (IoE Code 480506)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Monument_To_Sake_Deen_Mahomed%2C_St_Nicholas%27_Church%2C_Dyke_Road%2C_Brighton_%28IoE_Code_480506%29.JPG)
Mahomed died on 24 February 1851 (aged 91–92) at 32 Grand Parade, Brighton. He was buried in a grave at
St Nicholas Church, Brighton, in which his son Frederick was later interred. Frederick taught fencing, gymnastics and other activities in Brighton at a gymnasium he built on the town's Church Street.
Recognition
After his death in 1851, Sake Dean Mahomed, once so renowned in Ireland and Brighton's social scenes, had begun to lose prominence as a public figure and until the scholarly interventions of the last fifty years was largely forgotten by history.
The modern renewal of interest in his writings developed after poet and scholar
Alamgir Hashmi
Alamgir Hashmi (Urdu: عالمگیر ہاشمی), also known as Aurangzeb Alamgir Hashmi (born 15 November 1951), is an English poet of Pakistani origin. Considered avant-garde, his early and later works were published to considerable critical ...
drew attention to this author in the 1970s and 1980s.
Michael H. Fisher
Michael Herbert Fisher (born 1950) is emeritus Robert S. Danforth Professor of History at Oberlin College. He has published extensively about the interplay between Europeans and South Asians in South Asia and Europe. His three most widely held boo ...
has written a book on Sheikh Dean Mahomet entitled ''The First Indian Author in English: Dean Mahomed in India, Ireland, and England'' (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1996). Additionally, Rozina Visram's ''Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: The Story of Indians in Britain 1700–1947'' (1998) was highly influential in drawing public attention to Mahomed's life and work.
Several commemorations of and tributes to Mahomed's legacy have taken place in the 21st century. On 29 September 2005 the
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and London boroughs, borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of cent ...
unveiled a
Green Plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
commemorating the opening of the Hindoostane Coffee House.
The plaque is at 102 George Street, close to the original site of the coffee house at 34 George Street.
On 15 January 2019, Google recognised Sake Dean Mahomed with a
Google Doodle
A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...
on the main page.
See also
*
Lascar
A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland, or other land east of the Cape of Good Hope, who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the middle of the 2 ...
Published works
*
*
*
*
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Celebrating Sake Dean Mahomedat
Google Doodle
A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...
Web version of ''The Travels of Dean Mahomet''Works by or about Sake Dean Mahomedat
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
Works by or about Sake Dean Mahomedat
HathiTrust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...
*
"Making History – Sake Dean Mahomed – Regency 'Shampooing Surgeon'" ''BBC – Beyond the Broadcast''
''Black History in Brighton''*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahomet, Dean
1759 births
1851 deaths
18th-century Indian writers
19th-century Indian writers
18th-century Bengalis
19th-century Bengalis
British Anglicans
British former Muslims
British Indian history
British people of Bengali descent
Converts to Anglicanism from Islam
Indian Anglicans
Indian emigrants to England
Indian emigrants to Ireland
Indian former Muslims
Indian surgeons
Indian travel writers
Mughal Empire
Writers from Patna
British East India Company Army officers