Ardaseer Cursetjee

Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia

Richmond, London

1839–40, 1851–2, 1863–77

Ardaseer Cursetjee was a Parsee and the son of a master shipbuilder from Bombay. Cursetjee was a marine engineer who worked on steam and the introduction of gas lighting on ships. With his interest and expertise in engineering, he was keen to travel to England and left Bombay on 13 September 1839. Travelling with Parsee servants who would cook for him during his entire visit to England, he landed in England on 3 December 1839.

Cursetjee was well connected and during his time in England he was presented to Queen Victoria. He attended the House of Commons to give evidence to a committee on opium. He regularly attended meetings of the Institute of Civil Engineers and was their first Indian member. He left England in November 1840 to return to Bombay and published a diary of his visit in 1840. Cursetjee became the first Indian Fellow of the Royal Society of London when he was elected on 27 May 1841.

In 1853 and 1856 Cursetjee had two children, both born in Bombay, with Marian Barber. Ardaseer and Marian probably met while he was staying in London. He also had a wife in Bombay, to whom he remained legally married, but he lived with Marian for the rest of his life, providing for both families in his will. Marian gave birth to a third child in 1859 in London. Cursetjee retired in 1863 and settled with Marian and their three children in Richmond, London. Their house was known as Lowjee House, Marsh Gate. The house had three reception rooms and seven bedrooms, while outside there were stables for two horses as well as a coach house, a conservatory and a large garden with a summer house. Cursetjee became the first senior trustee of what is now the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe, the European body for Parsees. He died at his home in Richmond on 16 November 1877, aged 69.