Bombay Dockyard, also known as Naval Dockyard, is an Indian shipbuilding yard at

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 secon ...

. The superintendent of the dockyard is a Naval Officer of the rank

Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star " admiral" rank. It is often rega ...

, known as the Admiral Superintendent.

Background

Shipbuilding was an established profession throughout the Indian coastline prior to the advent of the Europeans and it contributed significantly to maritime exploration throughout Indian maritime history. Indian rulers weakened with the advent of the European powers during the

middle ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. Indian shipbuilders, however, continued to build ships capable of carrying 800 to 1000 tons. The shipbuilders built ships like HMS ''Hindostan'' and HMS ''Ceylon'', inducted into the Royal Navy. Other historical ships made by the Indian shipbuilders included HMS ''Asia'' (commanded by Edward Codrington during the

Battle of Navarino The Battle of Navarino was a naval battle fought on 20 October (O. S. 8 October) 1827, during the Greek War of Independence (1821–29), in Navarino Bay (modern Pylos), on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, in the Ionian Sea. Allied f ...

in 1827), HMS ''Cornwallis'' (on board which the Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1842), and HMS ''Minden'' (on which

Francis Scott Key Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet from Frederick, Maryland, who wrote the lyrics for the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner". Key observed the British bombardment ...

wrote the poem "The Defence of Fort McHenry", later to become the lyrics to "

The Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the ...

").''Early History'' (Indian Navy)

National Informatics Center The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is an Indian government department under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The NIC provides infrastructure, IT Consultancy, IT Services including but not limited to architect ...

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

History

The Yard was established in 1735 by 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 Sou ...

, which brought in shipwrights from their base at

Surat Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is ...

in order to construct vessels using Malabar

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters ( pan ...

. One of their number, Lovji Nusserwanjee Wadia, was (along with several generations of his descendants) a key figure in the success of the Yard, as indicated in ''

The New Cambridge History of India ''The New Cambridge History of India'' is a major multi-volume work of historical scholarship published by Cambridge University Press. It replaced '' The Cambridge History of India'' published between 1922 and 1937. The new history is being publi ...

: Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India'':Arnold, 101–102 Lowji Wadia oversaw the building of Bombay Dock, Asia's first

dry dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

, in 1750; it is still in use today. A contemporary British traveller,

Abraham Parsons Abraham Parsons (died 1785) was an English commercial consul (representative), consul and traveller. His account of his travels in the Middle East were published in 1808. Life Abraham's father was a captain of merchant ships, and In early life he ...

, described it as follows in 1775: In 1811 the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

took over the Yard, continuing to work with the Wadia family as Master Shipwrights. There was much construction on the site around this time. Duncan Dock, which was the largest dry dock outside Europe at the time, was constructed in 1807–1810, and remains in use today. The main Dockyard building, which fronts onto Shahid Bhagat Singh Road, dates from 1807, as does the administration block. The nearby

Great Western Building The Great Western Building is a building at Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra. This large and palatial-looking building has served many uses. It was once the residence of the Governor of Bombay. William Hornby, a former governor who was ins ...

(formerly Admiralty House) had housed the Port Admiral from around 1764–1792. Today the Yard serves as the premier repair yard of the Indian Navy. It employs 10,000 workers (mostly civilians) overseen by an

Admiral Superintendent The admiral-superintendent was the Royal Navy officer in command of a larger Naval Dockyard. Portsmouth, Devonport and Chatham all had admiral-superintendents, as did some other dockyards in the United Kingdom and abroad at certain times. The admi ...

References

Notes

* Arnold, David (2004), ''The New Cambridge History of India: Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India'', Cambridge University Press, .

External links

''Bombay Dockyard / Naval Dockyard, Mumbai'', GlobalSecurity.org.
{{Coord, 18, 55, 43, N, 72, 50, 28, E, region:IN_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Maritime history of India Indian Navy Shipyards of India Buildings and structures in Mumbai Naval Dockyard