The Oldest British Warship Afloat Was Built in Bombay

At Hartlepool, in the north-east of England, there is a warship you can walk onto.

HMS Trincomalee is the oldest British warship still afloat, and among the oldest ships afloat anywhere in the world.

She was launched in 1817 from a dockyard in Bombay, built by an Indian shipwright out of Indian teak.

How that came about

In 1736 the East India Company needed ships. And it had nobody in Bombay who could build them properly.

So it recruited a master carpenter from Surat. Lovji Nusserwanjee Wadia, a Parsi.

He came, and his family stayed for nearly two centuries. Nine successive Wadia master builders ran the Bombay Dockyard between 1736 and 1884, and the family's association with it lasted until 1913.

In 1750 Lovji and his brother Sorabji built the Bombay Dock, the first dry dock in Asia.