The Wadia family (Gujarati: વાડિયા પરિવાર) is a Parsi family originally based in Surat.
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 Wadia's 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. A Wadia did not visit the United States until 1849, when Ardeshir Cursetji Wadia also became the first Parsi to do so.
They have endowed Nowrosjee Wadia College in Pune.
Read more about Wadia Family: Notable Members
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