Silas Aaron Hardoon
Silas Aaron Hardoon
In The French Concession’s first blog post we want to introduce Silas Aaron Hardoon, an impressive personality that had significant influence in Shanghai’s architecture at the time.
Most people know Silas Hardoon as the Real Estate Tycoon, whose home the Hardoon Garden (now Shanghai’s International Exhibition Center) is as imposing now as it has been in his time.
Few know his rags to riches story that is worthy of Hollywood movie (merchant of shanghai) which is to be released soon!
Hardoon was also mentioned in the 1935 issue of Fortune Magazine estimating his wealth at a 150′000′000 US $ at the time making him one of the richest individuals in the world.
Inflation adjusted, Silas was worth 21 Billion in today’s Dollars.
Silas Aaron Hardoon was born 1851 (some sources I researched say 1949) Salih Harun into a poor jewish family in Baghdad. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire his family left for Mumbai (Bombay at the time) to a fresh start.
They found helping hands in the baghdadian Jewish community of bombay that was headed by David Sasson also a Bagdhad Jew (a historical figure that we will explore further in the future).
Hardoon attended a school funded by David Sassoon and would soon find himself employed by D. Sassoon’s & Co.
Hardoon Road, now Tongren Lu
Young Silas accomplishments were soon been recognised and he was sent to Hong Kong to get a better feel for the chinese market in 1868.
Due to reasons unknown he was dismissed just six years later and with no penny to his name made his way to Shanghai.
It’s quite important to know that the Bagdhadian Jewish Traders were ultimately linked to the british empire and operated under the aegis of the British empire.
They took on english names and spun a web of trading connections from London to Shanghai.
Again, a community of Bagdhadi Jews in the city helped him land a backbreaking job as rent collector at the local branch of D. Sassoons and Co.
Like before, Silas, now in his mid-twenties made a name for himself once again and schrewd investments secured great profits for the company and himself.
Hardoon Statue in Hardoon Garden
He had the foresight of Shanghai’s foreign settlements potential.
Hardoon begun to invest his own money in plots of lands that provided a good yield for him to expand his soon to become empire.
Most notably, Hardoon had a hand in many of the buildings around Nanking road that shapes Shanghai even today.
In 1882 Hardoon switched his interests to the Cotton Market and left D. Sassoons & Co.
Lucky for us, this change was shortlived and he continued his carreer in the property at Elias David Sassoons & Co (Elias David was David Sassons son) a property developer in the city.
At E D Sassons & Co. Silas became a partner and was in Charge of property developement and opium trading.
(Opium was legal, tradable commodity at the time, thanks to the forceful hand of the british empire).
It took a hard twist in history and lot’s of guts to make his mark in the world.
When the Chinese - French War broke out in 1884 many foreigners left the city, but Hardoon stayed, he saw a golden opportunity and seized it.
Leveraging himself to the neck and even disposing of his wife’s jewelry.
Though his wife was at first against it, he finally persuaded her and invested everything in Shanghai’s distressed Real Estate Market (as cause of the war).
His bet paid off, even though the chinese won the war the government soon signed the chinese-french contract and foreigners returned to the city.
Hardoons Wife Luo Jing
When Hardoon left the E. D. Sassoons Partnership in 1911 he owned most landmarks around downtown (which is now the nanjing road area).
And if you think the previous Real Estate Goldrush was anything notable, you will love this.
In a short time after the Sino-French Contract the city’s property index rose by nearly a thousand times.
Like all men in power, Hardoon also had a hand in the political endevours of the city and served as direct to the Shanghai International Settlement Commitee.
He was acknowledged later as a member to the exclusive Shanghai Club (a community of the british elite).
He loved gardening, and his local wife Luo Jing which he loved dearly had a lot of influence for him to become a devoted buddhist scholar.
He funded many of the temples and Buddhist projects in the area and adopted 9 orphans.
Silas Aaron Hardoon died in 1931, but he lives on in the cities architecture and personality.
The Name Ha-tong (in chinese) is a term to most Shanghainese and he’s usually regarded as a good person and they connect him directly to the city’s Golden Era.
Shanghai Exhibition Center Former Home of Hardoon
Silas wasn’t perceived the same by all, and there is a lot of controversy surrounding him and Shanghai’s History.
See below.
Fortune magazine’s mini-biography:
“Silas Aaron Hardoon, who died in 1931, was Shanghai’s Julius Rosenwald-millionaire, philanthropist, cultured Jew. Born in Baghdad, educated in Bombay, he joined the firm of David Sassoon& Co., Ltd., switched to E. D. Sassoon & Co. and in 1911 launched into Shanghai real estate. He died worth $150,000,000, most of it representing properties on Shanghai’s Fifth Avenue, Nanking Road.”
An excerpt from Sin City, by Ralph Shaw, a British journalist in Shanghai from 1937 to 1949:
“Among those who had made immense fortunes by bringing in opium was the ‘Baghdad Jew’, Hardoon. Starting life as a watchman, he had risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the millions of pipefuls of the drug he had provided for the emaciated sots who were in its deadly grip. But, as if to atone for the misery his trading success had caused, he adopted a family of about nine orphaned children of many races who lived with him in a palatial mansion on Bubbling Well Road.”
Sources:
Earnshaw
Wikipedia
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Hi.
A correction - He was born Saleh Hardoon (סאלח חרדון) not, Harun.
Best,
David R. Hardoon
[...] probably “the” person who shaped Shanghai the way we know it today. And along with Hardoon was another significant young man that made his fortune in the [...]
Philip,
Great new blog, congratulations. Looking forward to new posts.
If you have a minute pls check out my website:
http://www.shanghai-vintage-hotels.com/
I stumbled on this site by accident. Fascinating. I look forward to finding out more. Growing up in HK, to which I moved in 1952, I went to school with a number of people whose families were originally from Shanghai and of Jewish origin. I also in later life made a number of other friends whilst in HK who shared this background. Unfortunately I hav lost touch with many since moving to the UK in 1985. One family I knew in my youth were Marcel St Marq, who was a French Jew and jockey for the To family, his wife Tuba a Russian Jew from Shanghai (her father was a tailor there and she and Marcel met when he was racing in Shanghai) and their son Bobby. Marcel was killed in a riding accident in a race at Happy Valley circa 1960. Later his widow and her son moved to Argentina where she remarried; her son moved to Australia where he is still based I believe. In 2007 on a visit to HK when dining with members of the To family they told me that the HK Jockey Club was mounting an exhibition about Marcel in time for the Beijing Olympic Games (the equestrian events were held in Macau and HK). Another family I got to know when at KGV School in HK in the late ’50s-early ’60s was called Huber; Kathy was a bit older than myself but her son John was in my year. Their father was Swiss and their mother a Russian Jew. The latter and her mother escaped Russia folowing the Russian revolution and made their way to Harbin. Not sure exactly when or where she met her future husband but I think it was in the ’30s, possibly in Shanghai. However during WW2 they were in HK, where Kathy was born. I was given to understand that because Mr Huber was Swiss he was able to help the Russian community, who were not interned so surviving on the ‘outside’ in desperate straits, through the Swiss Red Cross, and they never forgot this after the war. Kathy married a Tim Ellis circa 1962 who had been interned in the same Shanghai POw CAMP as the writer JG Ballard, and they moved first to Hawaii where they were living in 1963 and later to Peoria in Arizona, the USA when Tim retired. Another friend, who was a colleague of mine in HK in the ’70s in the course of voluntary work we were both engaged in, Felix Carrady (this might be Carridy) was another such who came to HK from Shanghai and was from a Jewish family.He had at least one sister whom I never met. He was married to a ballet teacher and they had two children. He ran/owned a company manufacturing and/or trading in plstic flowers based in Central District.I used to know his middle name but it has escaped me. I believe he himself at one time trained as a ballet dancer. Eventually, following I believe his divorce (and I have reason to think also that his business declined) he moved to Autralia. I came across a comment on the arts in Melbourne by a Felix Carrady which leads me to believe he is in this city but have not been able to track him down. Finally, through my future husband I got to know a Russian Jew by the name of Boris Green (I think it was originally Greenstein) who had previously been in Shanghai. Sadly he died at Easter 1971 (he is buried at the Jewish cemetery in Happy Valley, HK, near the racecourse stables, with a huge mausoleum that the Leungs had erected) but I have never forgotten him: he was a colourful and generous character, who worked for Co Gems the diamond company owned (and still owned) by the Leung family, and gave me a jade ring which the grandmother of the generation that ran it at that time had given him, and which I still have. If you can help me find about more about these old friends which perhaps will help me reconnect I will be most grateful. Plus I think that their stories will enhance your publication.