G. J. Watumull

Business executive, investor, philanthropist

• Pronunciation: WAH-tuh-muhl
• Born: June 26, 1891
• Birthplace: Hyderabad, Sindh, British India (now Pakistan)
• Died: August 13, 1959
• Place of death: Honolulu, Hawaii

Businessman G. J. Watumull contributed to Hawaii’s retail industry and the growth in popularity around the United States of what became known as “Hawaiian shirts.” He also invested in Hawaii real estate and established the Watumull Foundation for the promotion of the economic and educational development of India, as well as to support educational and cultural activities in Hawaii.

Areas of achievement: Business, philanthropy

Early Life

G. J. Watumull was born in 1891 in Hyderabad, Sindh, British India (today Pakistan), one of nine children born to Jhamandas Naraindas, his father, and Hekandbai, his mother. His family was part of a merchant clan in the Sindhi ethnic group. His father worked as a contractor and suffered a debilitating accident when Watumull was eight years old. Because his father was unable to work, Watumull’s older brother Jhamandas left British India to find work in retail management, first in the Philippines, then in Hawaii.

In the meantime, Watumull’s other two elder brothers supported their parents and siblings by working for four cents a day. Even though times were difficult, Watumull remained in school. He attended a village school from which he graduated in 1909. In 1911 Watumull attended the University of Bombay and completed a two-year engineering program with the financial help of Jhamandas. Soon after he completed his studies, Watumull was hired for a government job and worked on an irrigation project in the Sindh region. He continued his work with the government and became a chief clerk, earning ten dollars a month. In 1917, Jhamandas persuaded Watumull to leave India and move to Hawaii to manage the retail business.

Life’s Work

Watumull arrived in the US Territory of Hawaii on October 30, 1917, and assumed the management of his brother’s Far East India Store, which later became known as Watumull’s East India Store. The original store was located in Manila, the Philippines; the store in Hawaii opened in 1913. Watumull began as the store’s manager and major buyer. Many of the store’s goods were imported from places such as Bombay, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Located in the downtown area of Honolulu, the business thrived under Watumull’s direction. By 1922, the store was one of two major retailers in Hawaii that specialized in aloha attire—typified by the so-called Hawaiian shirt—clothing printed with the bright colors and large floral designs that became a symbol of Hawaii.

In 1937, Watumull and the company moved the store to a new three-story building more centrally located within the downtown Honolulu area. Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, the business survived and even expanded. In 1936, Watumull began a Hawaiian sportswear clothing line and commissioned his sister-in-law, artist Elsie Das, as the designer. She used nature as her source for creating unique aloha-wear designs specifically for the store.

When World War II began, Watumull found it difficult to import goods from Asia. He adapted the store’s inventory, moving from a store featuring import goods to a men’s and women’s clothing store that specialized in Hawaiian sportswear. Eight years after the war ended, the company began importing Asian goods once more. The retail business continued to expand. By the time of Watumull’s death in 1959, eleven stores bearing the Watumull name were in existence, including one in Waikiki. By 1964, there were seventeen stores in Hawaii.

In addition to the retail business, Watumull also invested in real estate. In 1952, Watumull Enterprises secured a fifty-five-year lease for property on the main road through the town of Kailua, Oahu, and began building Kailua Shopping Center, which would house several stores and a supermarket. The half-million-dollar center opened in June 1954. A year later, Watumull began building an apartment hotel in Waikiki. It was his first tourist and apartment hotel business in Waikiki. Later, the company would expand and build the Waikiki Beach Shops as well as an office building in the business district of downtown Honolulu. Other business interests included the management of Kauai Beachboy Hotel on the island of Kauai. For Watumull, however, the real estate aspect of his business was more of a hobby than his main focus.

Throughout most of his career, he was helped by his wife, Ellen Jensen, who was born in Portland, Oregon, and arrived in Hawaii in 1920 to teach music. The couple met through mutual friends. They were married in Redwood City, California, on July 5, 1922. Their marriage would be one of the first Indian-American unions. They had three children, Lila, David, and Radha. Lila joined her father in the business as a buyer while David assisted in the management of the company. Watumull officially retired in 1957.

When Watumull and Jensen married, Watumull was not a US citizen, and the laws at the time required Jensen to forfeit her US citizenship upon marrying a foreign national. Watumull had begun applying for citizenship immediately after his arrival in Hawaii and obtained his first papers in 1918. However, five years later, when he would have been eligible for citizenship, US immigration law was revised to exclude Asians from eligibility to become citizens. Watumull campaigned for years against these immigration restrictions, and when they were finally lifted following World War II, Watumull became a citizen in 1946.

Watumull’s involvement in civic affairs did not end there. In 1942, he and his wife formed the Watumull Foundation to promote India and its culture. In 1943, Watumull assisted with the formation in Washington, DC, of the National Committee for India’s Freedom, a group that supported the movement for Indian independence from Great Britain. As another means by which to promote a better understanding of India and its culture, Watumull was a member of the East-West Philosophers’ Conference, a gathering of intellectuals to discuss the coming together of Eastern and Western thought. For Watumull, promoting cultural understanding and working toward peace were essential to creating a better world.

Only two years following his retirement, Watumull died of a heart condition at the age of sixty-eight, just eight days before Hawaii became a state. He was survived by his wife, three children, five grandsons, two brothers, and a nephew, who had been assisting him with the family business.

Significance

Watumull’s achievements are plentiful and helped to shape Hawaii’s merchandising history. As one of the major retailers that promoted Hawaiian sportswear and its themes, Watumull helped to shape the direction of Hawaiian clothing. In addition, he built one of the first shopping centers in Kailua, Oahu, which was still operating in 2011. Through the Watumull Foundation, he sponsored the exchange of students between India and the United States and supported Hawaiian cultural activities, including the Honolulu Symphony and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Upon his death, a tribute to Watumull in Hawaiian newspapers noted that good will was the legacy he left behind.

Bibliography

Arthur, Linda. Aloha Attire: Hawaii Dress in the Twentieth Century. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2000. Print. Highlights the development of the manufacturing and retail merchandising of Hawaiian sportswear.

Hope, Dale, with Gregory Tozian. The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands. Hillsboro, OH: Beyond Words, 2000. Print. Quotes Lila Sahney, the eldest of G. J. Watumull’s children, about the growth in popularity of the aloha shirt. The book also includes information about the designers of aloha shirts, including Elsie Das and Ellen Jensen.

Markovits, Claude. Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama. New York: Cambridge UP, 2000. Print. Gives the reader more background information about the diaspora of Indian merchants to other parts of the world.