Dean Mahomed

Dean Mahomed (May 1759 – 24 February 1851) was a British Indian traveller, soldier, surgeon, entrepreneur, and one of the most notable early non-European immigrants to the Western World. Due to non-standard transliteration, his name is spelled in various ways. His high social status meant that he later adopted the honorific "Sake" (Sheikh) meaning "venerable one". Mahomed introduced Indian cuisine and shampoo baths to Europe, where he offered therapeutic massage. He was also the first Indian to publish a book in English.

"so long as the Sepoys maintain their formations, which they call 'lines', they are like an immovable volcano spewing artillery and rifle fire like unrelenting hail on the enemy, and they are seldom defeated."

Born c. May 1759 in the city of Patna, then part of the Bengal Subah of the Mughal Empire and today the capital of the Indian state of Bihar. Dean Mahomed described himself as a "native of Patna" belonging to a Shia Muslim family that claimed Arab and Afshar Turk origin. However other sources indicate that he belonged to the Nai caste of barbers.

In his work Shampooing, he described himself as a native of India, born in the city of Patna in Hindoostan:

"The humble author of these sheets, is a native of India; and was born in the year 1749,[sic] at Patna, the capital of Bihar, in Hindoostan, about 290 miles N.W. of Calcutta. I was educated to the profession of, and served in the Company's Service, as a Surgeon, which capacity I afterwards relinquished, and acted in a military character, exclusively for nearly fifteen years. In … the commencement of the year 1784, [I] left the service and came to Europe, where I have resided ever since."

Dean Mahomed's father served in the Bengal Army which mainly recruited from the area of Bihar and the historian, Michael H. Fisher believes that Dean Mahomed's father was recruited by Robert Clive during a recruitment drive in the town of Buxar. He claimed he had ancestors who worked in administrative service under the Mughal Emperors and the Nawabs of Murshidabad. Sake Dean Mahomed grew up in Patna and his father died in battle when Mahomed was about 11 years old.

Following his father's death, he was taken under the wing of Captain Godfrey Evan Baker, an Anglo-Irish Protestant officer. Mahomed served in the army of the East India Company as a trainee surgeon and against the Marathas. He remained with Captain Baker until 1782 when the Captain resigned. That same year, Mahomed also resigned from the Army, choosing to accompany Baker, 'his best friend', to Ireland.

In 1784, Mahomed emigrated to Cork, Ireland, with the Baker family. There he studied to improve his English language skills at a local school, and fell in love with Jane Daly, a "pretty Irish girl of respectable parentage". The Daly family was opposed to their relationship because it was illegal for Protestants to marry non-Protestants at the time, so the couple eloped to another town to get married. Mahomed and Daly were married in the Diocese of Cork & Ross in Cork. They moved to 7 Little Ryder Street in London, England, at the turn of the 19th century." In 1786, Mahomed converted from Islam to Christianity.