Dhun Jehangir Ruttonjee (10 July 1903 – 28 July 1974) was a leader of the Indian community in Hong Kong. He was chairman of the Hong Kong Anti-Tuberculosis and Thoracic Diseases Association [ zh] and a

Legislative Councillor A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the British ( ...

. Ruttonjee was the son of businessman and philanthropist Jehangir Ruttonjee.

Biography

Ruttonjee was born in Hong Kong in 1903 to prominent

Parsee The Parsis or Parsees () are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, whe ...

Jehangir Hormusjee Ruttonjee Jehangir Hormusjee Ruttonjee CBE JP (1880–1960) () was an Indian Parsi philanthropist in Hong Kong. He is famous for founding the Ruttonjee Sanatoria, and helped in the establishment of the Hong Kong Anti-Tuberculosis Association. Biography ...

. He attended Saint Joseph's College and was an undergraduate at the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

, although, like many of his fellows at the university before the war, he left early to join the family business. One of Ruttonjee's sisters, Tehmi Ruttonjee-Desai, died of tuberculosis in 1943, spurring his father to found the Hong Kong Anti-Tuberculosis Association [ zh] in 1948, of which Dhun Ruttonjee was chairman from 1964 until his death (succeeding Donovan Benson [ zh], preceding Seaward Woo).The Royal Naval Hospital, Hong Kong
private website citing Harland, Kathleen's ''The Royal Navy in Hong Kong since 1841'', Maritime Books, Liskeard, Cornwall, undated; and Melson, Commodore P.J., (ed.) Edinburgh Financial Publishing, Hong Kong, 1997. In 1942, during the

Japanese occupation of Hong Kong The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the governor of Hong Kong, Mark Aitchison Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of British Hong Kong, Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. His surrender occurred after Batt ...

, Ruttonjee family properties Dina House and Ruttonjee Building on

Duddell Street Duddell Street (Traditional Chinese characters, Chinese: 都爹利街) is a small street located near the Lan Kwai Fong district in Central, Hong Kong, Central, Hong Kong. Named after George and Frederick Duddell, it stretches from Ice House ...

were beleaguered by Japanese guards for several weeks. In 1944, Ruttonjee and his father were arrested, tortured and sentenced to five years' imprisonment, of which they served nine months before the liberation of the city. They were accused of aiding those at the

Stanley Internment Camp Stanley Internment Camp () was a civilian internment camp in Hong Kong during the Second World War. Located in Stanley, Hong Kong, Stanley, on the southern end of Hong Kong Island, it was used by the Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese imperial fo ...

and general anti-Japanese activity. He was appointed Justice of the Peace after the

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

, in 1947. He was made an Unofficial member of the

Legislative Council of Hong Kong The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, colloquially known as LegCo, is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Hong Kong. It sits under People's Republic of China, China's "one country, two systems" c ...

in 1953. In the Council, he sat on the Kaitak Progress Committee alongside

Ngan Shing-kwan Ngan Shing-kwan, , Justice of the peace, JP (; December 18, 1900 – 14 April, 2001), Hong Kong Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur and politician, was the founder of the China Motor Bus, or CMB, which owned the Bus services in Hong Kong, bus Gover ...

and Charles Terry. Ruttonjee was made

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in 1957, and promoted to Commander (CBE) in 1964, for public services. During the 1967 leftist riot, Ruttonjee was one of the earliest supporters of government crackdown among local elites. He served on the Legislative Council until 1968. He was known to often wear an

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...

, a fact mentioned when he received the degree of

Doctor of Laws A Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) is a doctoral degree in legal studies. The abbreviation LL.D. stands for ''Legum Doctor'', with the double “L” in the abbreviation referring to the early practice in the University of Cambridge to teach both canon law ...

honoris causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

'' from the

the next year. Ruttonjee died on 28 July 1974.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruttonjee, Dhun Jehangir 1903 births 1974 deaths Alumni of the University of Hong Kong Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Hong Kong businesspeople Hong Kong people of Parsi descent Hong Kong philanthropists Hong Kong justices of the peace Members of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 20th-century Indian philanthropists