Before the construction of the iconic Bombay House for the Tata Group offices in 1924, they were based in the red brick walled Navsari Building and Chambers (NBC) on Hornby (now Dr Dadabhai Naoroji) Road. However, Victoria Buildings on Parsi Bazar Street (now S. A. Brelvi Marg) was the "first head office of the Tata Group,” notes Rajendra Prasad Narla, archivist at Tata Central Archives.
When the Victoria Buildings office of the Tata Group was found too small in 1904 for the increasing business, "the House of Tata shifted to NBC,” notes a column "Memories” in the Tata Monthly Bulletin (TMB) Volume 3, number 3 of 1948. Written by P. P. Mistri, private secretary to Sir Ratan Tata from 1901 till the industrialist’s death in 1918, Mistri noted that "big things were done by Jamsetji (at Victoria Building) without ostentation or fuss. Management of (cotton) mills, preliminaries for establishment of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the construction of the Taj (Hotel) had just begun to occupy his mind.
Top: Victoria Buildings now Photo: Vinayak Talwar; above: letter head of Jamsetji Tata;
(r): early photo of the first headquarters of the Tata Group Photos: Tata Central Archives
"I still remember Jamsetji walking in every afternoon on the stroke of two, clad in his white Parsi suit with round Parsi turban made of some Chinese silk, and (his son) Dorabji coming at the same time with his long China silk coat unbuttoned,” wrote the secretary. Jamsetji’s son "Ratan and (cousin) R. D. Tata were early comers, both of them dressed in white Parsi clothes… No one dared enter Bapuji’s room (Jamsetji was always known by that name by family members) without a black velvet cap.”
Narla recalled that for several years, the third floor of Victoria Building housed the Elphinstone Club which was co-founded by Jamsetji in the 1870s. The Building became one of the properties set aside by Jamsetji for the setting up of the IISc. "It continues to be under the board of management that looks after the properties vested for IISc,” he said. The building houses commercial offices and some residences now.
Mistri noted that family patriarch Jamsetji had "passed away at Bad-Nauheim in Germany a few months prior to the Tatas going into their new (NBC) office.”