Wadia family

[KALKI]

The Wadia family is a family originally based in Surat, subsequently shifted to Mumbai. A family with a respectable lineage going back nearly three centuries, they have lately come to be identified with the Jinnah family due to an unfortunate relationship. This is because a scion of the family, Neville Wadia, married Dina Jinnah, the only daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who was responsible for the Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. The present head of the house is Nusli Wadia, spawn of Neville and Dina Wadia, who runs the Wadia Group of companies.

Lovji Nusserwanjee Wadia began the Wadia shipbuilding dynasty in 1736, when he obtained a contract from the British East India Company for building docks and ships in Bombay (present-day Mumbai). Although the Wadias would eventually come to be considered a Bombay family, many of them remained in Surat, where one branch of the family established a ship breaking yard (where ships are dismantled) that remains one of the largest of its kind in the world.

By the 1840s, the family was one of the leading forces in the Indian shipbuilding industry. By that time they had built over a hundred warships for the British and had trading networks around the world.

The Star Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the United States, was written in 1812 on a Wadia built British Navy ship, the HMS Minden. In 1849, Ardeshir Cursetji Wadia became the first Parsi to visit United States.

They have endowed Nowrosjee Wadia College in Pune. Lovji Nusserwanjee Wadia's great grandsons, JBH Wadia and Homi Wadia founded Wadia Movietone in 1933, which had its studios at Lovji Castle (Lovejee Castle) in Chembur, Mumbai. The company has its logo as a ship, honouring their family legacy