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

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Associated with India * of or related to India ** Indian people ** Indian diaspora ** Languages of India ** Indian English, a dialect of the English language ** Indian cuisine Associated with indigenous peoples o ...

Parsi The Parsis or Parsees () are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, w ...

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 shipbuilders serving the British East India Company as the latter established its sway over India. During ...

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

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

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 ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

), 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 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 shipbuilders serving the British East India Company as the latter established its sway over India. During ...

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 usu ...

). 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 lit using gas lighting. He married a

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, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...

. 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 that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

. 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 op ...

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. 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 Commis ...

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 The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a borough in London, England. Situated on the north bank of the River Thames and immediately east of the City of London, the borough spans much of the traditional East End of London and includes much of ...

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 The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...

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 of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

in 1941.

Commemoration

On 27 May 1969, the

Indian Postal Service The Department of Posts, d/b/a India Post, is an Indian public sector postal system statutory body headquartered in New Delhi, India. It is an organisation under the Ministry of Communications. It is the most widely distributed postal system in ...

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 counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

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 certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

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, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

at 55 Sheen Road,

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

, 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