Dhun Jehangir Ruttonjee

Biography

Ruttonjee was born in Hong Kong in 1903 to prominent Parsee Jehangir Hormusjee Ruttonjee. He attended St Joseph's College and was an undergraduate at the University of Hong Kong, 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 Dhum Ruttonjee was chairman from 1964 until his death (succeeding Donovan Benson [zh], preceding Seaward Woo).

In 1942, during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Ruttonjee family properties Dina House and Ruttonjee Building on Duddell Street were beleaugered 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 and general anti-Japanese activity.

He was appointed Justice of the Peace after the war, in 1947. He was made an Unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong in 1953. In the Council, he sat on the Kaitak Progress Committee alongside Ngan Shing-kwan and Charles Terry. Ruttonjee was made Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1957, and Commander in 1964, for public services. He served on the Legislative Council until 1968. He was known to often wear an orchid, a fact mentioned when he received the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa from the University of Hong Kong the next year. Ruttonjee died on 28 July 1974.