Framji Nasserwanji Patel was one of the founding partners of Wallace & Co. having been a partner in Frith & Co. when it was taken over by Lewis Wallace in 1848. He was noticed as having outstanding ability from an early age and in later years became a highly respected leader of the Parsee community in Bombay. When Patel died in 1894 at the age of ninety, he was regarded as 'the most revered and best loved of the distinguished sons of India'.