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If you imagine that Lancashire's links with the Indian
subcontinent began with a trickle of migrants in the 1960s, think
again. Among the several distinguished guests to sign the
visitors book at Hick, Hargreaves & Company's Soho Iron Works
on Crook Street, Bolton on 9th October 1860 were Mahiputram
Rupram and Cowasji Eduljee. Both residents of Bombay, India they
joined the long list of entrepreneurs, industrialists, engineers
and military men attracted here by the reputation of the county's
numerous engineering firms.
The significance of their visit, which may or may not have been appreciated at the time, was to be considerable - even historic. Of the several Indian families which emerged as leading commercial dynasties during the industrial revolution, the Wadias of Surat and Bombay in particular achieved wealth, fame and imperial recognition. Certainly one, perhaps both, the visitors from India was a close relative of the Wadias; a family who's origins stemmed from ancient Persia.
The Wadia
('shipbuilder') family had originally established itself in
Surat, an important seaport on the west coast of India. Surat was
where the British East India Company was first based and where
merchants from Portugal, Holland, France and other European
nations opened trading stations. Lovji Nusserwanji Wadia had
already established a reputation as a master shipbuilder when the
British East India Company secured his services and in 1750 when
Asia's first dry-dock in was built in Bombay, Lovji and his
brother Sorabji were chosen to lead the project. After Lovji
Wadia's death in 1774 his sons Maneckji and Bomanji continued the
family tradition and expanded their reputation for integrity,
industry and ability. For a century, between 1840 and 1940, the
Indian shipping and building industry was dominated by Cowasji,
Burjorji, Behramji, Rustomji, Hormuzji, Nusserwanji and Pestonji
Wadia. Between them they built many ships for the Indian and
British Royal Navy, among them H.M.S. Trincomalee (later renamed
Foudroyant), which was launched in 1817. She served in the
Crimean War (1852 to 1857) and in World War II and now rests in
Britain, soon to be converted into a museum.
From around 1850 Hick, Hargreaves & Co. built a
considerable number of Marine Engines. Among these were engines
for the Paddle Wheel driven Frigates H.M.S. Alphonse and H.M.S.
Amazonas and the propeller driven Mediterranean steamers H.M.S.
Nile and H.M.S. Orontes. Ships like these were so successful that
the Bolton firm became famous as suppliers of marine prime
movers. High ranking naval officers, Admirals and Rear Admirals
of the Imperial Brazilian Navy among them, literally beat a path
to their doors. A prominent German business man, A. Roosen-Runge,
financier to Nikolaus August Otto who built the first four-stroke
internal combustion engine, was here on the same day as Cowasji
Eduljee and Mahiputram Rupram. By 1913, when their connection
with the Bombay Dockyard came to an end, the Wadia family had
designed and built over 400 ships, several of which were powered
by Bolton built prime movers. The Bombay built SS Hugh Lindsay
made the voyage to Suez and back in record time.
On 23rd August 1879 Nowroji Nusserwanji Wadia (1849
to 1899) established his first textile company, the Bombay Dying
& Manufacturing Co. Certainly the most famous and perhaps the
most successful of the Wadias he was educated in England. His
first textile enterprise specialised in Indian spun cotton yarn
which was dip dyed by hand and laid out in the sun to dry. From
these modest beginnings grew one of India's largest textile
producers. By 1883 Hick, Hargreaves were supplying steam engines
to Wadia mills, in that year alone two 400 IHP Horizontal Corliss
Condensing Compound Engines were shipped to the Crown Spinning
& Weaving Co. and a further two to E. D. Sassoon & Co. By
the early 1900s more than 70 mills had been built, including the
National, the Neriad, the Dhun, the Presidency, the Calicut and
the Century, and it was to Bolton that Nowroji turned when they
were equipped. Firms like Dobson & Barlow and Hick,
Hargreaves supplied huge numbers of engines, transmission
equipment and textile machinery to the Wadia enterprises.
Wadia
companies such as the Hajeebhoy Laljee Co., Ahmedabad New Cotton
Mills, Mahamedbhoy Mill, The Currimbhoy Mills, The Pearl Mill,
Fazalbhoy Mills, Premier Mills, Kalyanmal Mills, National Mills,
Wadia Woollen Mills, Hukamchand Mills, The Vishnu Cotton Mills,
Indore Malwa United Mills, Pandalal Handal Bhandari Mills,
Rajkumar Mills, The Doongersi Gangji Ginning Factory at Latur,
The Moon Mills, The Pandyan Mills, The Ousman Shahi Mills, The
Khandeish Spinning & Weaving Company and The Empress Mills,
would have been very familiar to two or three generations of
Bolton's engineering and factory workers.
Neville Ness Wadia was born in Liverpool on 22nd August 1911. Educated at Malvern College and Cambridge University he began his career in 1931 as an apprentice with the Bombay Dyeing and Manufacturing Company. He married Dina Jinnah, the daughter of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Founder of Pakistan.
In 1933 Neville was appointed director and after his father's death in 1952 he took over as chairman. Under his direction turnover increased eleven fold and the business became the largest textile operation in India. At the age of 66, after spending forty eight years with Bombay Dyeing & Manufacturing, he handed over control to his son Nusli Neville Wadia. Neville Ness Wadia died on 1st August 1995.
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