Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia FRS (6 October 1808 – 16 November 1877) was an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

Parsi shipbuilder and engineer belonging to the

Wadia The Wadia family is a Parsi family from Surat, India currently based in Mumbai, India. The family rose to wealth in the mid-1700s as ship-builders serving the British East India Company as the latter established its sway over India. During t ...

ship building family. He is noted for having been the first Indian to be elected a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. He is also recorded as having introduced several (at the time) novel technologies to the city of Bombay (now

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

), including gas lighting, the sewing machine, steam pump-driven irrigation and electro-plating. He is presumed to be the first Parsi to have visited America (1851).

Biography

Ardaseer Cursetjee was the son of Cursetjee Rustomjee, a scion of the wealthy Wadia family of shipbuilders and naval architects, who was a ship builder at the Bombay Dockyard (today, Mumbai's

Naval Dockyard A naval base, navy base, or military port is a military base, where warships and naval ships are docked when they have no mission at sea or need to restock. Ships may also undergo repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that us ...

). In 1822, aged 14, Ardaseer joined his father at the dockyards. He is described to have been particularly interested in steam engines. In 1833, aged 25, he designed and launched a small 60 ton ocean-going ship called ''Indus''. This ship would subsequently warrant a mention in his nomination for the Royal Society. In 1834, in the presence of the

Governor of Bombay Until the 18th century, Bombay consisted of seven islands separated by shallow sea. These seven islands were part of a larger archipelago in the Arabian sea, off the western coast of India. The date of city's founding is unclear—historians tr ...

, he had his house and gardens at

Mazgaon Mazagaon, also spelled Mazgaon and Mazagon (Portuguese rule Mazagão), and pronounced by the Catholics as 'Mazgon' or 'Maz-a-gon' and the Marathi-speakers as Mazhgav, is one of the seven islands of Mumbai. References ;Notes {{reflist ;Sou ...

lit using gas lighting. He married a Parsi girl, Avabai, and the couple had several children who subsequently became the initial members of the wealthy Wadia business family of India. In 1837, Ardaseer was elected a non-resident member of the

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

. In 1839, at the age of 31, he travelled overland to England to further his studies of marine steam power on behalf of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. He recounted his journey in ''The Diary of an Overland Journey from Bombay to England'', which was published in London in 1840. While in England, he constructed a steam engine, which he then had shipped to India for installation on the ''Indus''. On 27 May 1841, Cursetjee was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. The nomination, made by Spencer Compton, Marquess of Northampton, the then President of the Society, describes him as a "gentleman well versed in the theory and practice of

naval architecture Naval architecture, or naval engineering, is an engineering discipline incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software and safety engineering as applied to the engineering design process, shipbuilding, maintenance, and o ...

and devoted to scientific pursuits." It credits him with both the introduction of gas lighting to Bombay, as well as having "built a ea-goingvessel of 60 tons to which he adapted a Steam Engine." In 1855 he was elected a

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

. Ardaseer Cursetjee remained Chief Engineer at the Bombay Docks until 1 August 1857, when he retired. He returned to England, where he settled. In 1858, Ardaseer made his last trip to London and decided to permanently live in the UK with his mistress, an English woman named Marian Barber. While the couple did not marry, they had children and their lineage continues to live in the United Kingdom to date. One of his descendants Blair Southerden has written books, including ''A Gentle Lion and other ancestors'' (2013) tracing back his lineage, profiling the Parsi community and their interests in ship building. Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia died, aged 69, on 16 November 1877 in

Richmond, London Richmond is a town in south-west London,The London Government Act 1963 (c.33) (as amended) categorises the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames as an Outer London borough. Although it is on both sides of the River Thames, the Boundary Commiss ...

Family

Cursetjee set up home with Marian Barber (1817–1899) in England, living together although they never formally married. Marian was a British woman, from Tower Hamlets whose brother worked as a clerk in the docks of London. Together the couple had a number of children, the first of which, Lowjee Annie, was born in Bombay in December 1853. Her second child, Gustasp Ardaseer, was born in Bombay in 1856. The couple subsequently returned to UK as the Parsi community in India did not accept their marriage. Ardaseer had a wife in India, Avabai, whom he left along with his children in India when he migrated to the UK. For example, Cursetjee Rustomjee (1855–1941), the grandson of Avabai and Ardaseer was sent to England to study for the Indian Civil Service examination and stayed with his grandfather in Richmond. There, he met Lowjee Annie, his aunt and the daughter of Ardaseer and Marian. He married her in 1880. While their three children were all born in India, their father returned to England soon after retirement in 1911. He died in Matlock,

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

in 1941.

Commemoration

On 27 May 1969, the Indian Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in recognition of his contributions as "pioneer and innovator." His children in the UK continued to carry his name for some time. St. Mathias church in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

records that in 1879, one of his children, Gustasp Ardaseer, married Florence Neal. On 19 May 2021, a

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...

was unveiled in Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia's honour by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

at 55 Sheen Road,

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

, London, where he settled with Marian Barber and their family for the last decade of his life, naming the property Lowgee House after his ancestral name.

Biography

Family

Commemoration

References

Further reading