HMS CORNWALLIS (AKBAR)

'Among the several Parsis employed in the East India Company’s dockyard at Surat was Lowjee Jusserwanjee who was so efficient in supervising the building of a ship, the Queen that he was called to Bombay to establish a building yard there where he laid the foundation of an establishment which came to be considered “the finest naval arsenal in India”.

His sons and grandsons continued the hard work, building over a period of 150 years, several trading ships as well as man-of-war ships which distinguished themselves in countless sea battles, so much so that the ship building industry in Britain, which had monopolised the trade, became alarmed that if the policy of using India–built ships were to be continued, the families of the shipwrights in England would be reduced to starvation. But the policy was continued by the level-headed authorities of the day. A frigate, the HMS Cornwallis, built by the Wadias and launched from the Bombay dockyard in 1800, was purchased for the (British) Royal Navy and, as a supreme tribute to the Indian master builders, was renamed Akbar by the lords of admiralty.

A scion of the Wadia family, master builder Nowrojee, built the Hugh Lindsay, the steamer in Bombay to make the voyage to Suez and back in record time.

On the day he died after 52 years of meritorious service the British Commodore ordered the dockyard to be closed and flags, to be flown at half-mast on all vessels in the harbour, the only recorded instance when a private individual was so honoured. But a more glowing tribute to Wadia’s initiative and enterprise was paid when HMS Cornwallis was broken up after years of service and the helm cut and carved from the original timber was presented on behalf of the commissioners of the British admiralty to Neville Wadia, a distinguished descendant of the Wadias.'

The above information came from a webside which no longer exists. Given that someone was asking on one of the lists about a piece of wood he had reputed to be from the HMS Cornwallis it appears that the information is correct.

Irene M Fullarton,

3 July 2003.





































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