Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia

Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia FRS (25 October 1883 – 15 June 1969) was a pioneering geologist in India and among the first Indian scientists to work in the Geological Survey of India. He is remembered for his work on the stratigraphy of the Himalayas. He helped establish geological studies and investigations in India, specifically at the Institute of Himalayan Geology, which was renamed in 1976 after him as the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology. His textbook on the Geology of India, first published in 1919, continues to be in use.

Wadia was born at Surat in Gujarat, the fourth of nine children of Nosherwan and Gooverbai Wadia on 25 October 1883. They belonged to Parsi family who had traditionally been shipbuilders and another member of this community included Ardaseer Cursetjee, the first Indian elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Nosherwan Wadia worked in the Bombay, Baroda and Central Indian Railways. Young Wadia received his early schooling in a private school at Surat and later at Sir J. J. English School before the family moved to Baroda in 1894 where he went to Baroda High School. The interest in science was instilled by his oldest brother, Munchershaw N. Wadia who was an educationist in the princely state of Baroda. At 16 years, he moved to Baroda College, where he was influenced by Adarji M. Masani and Aravind Ghosh. He obtained a BSc degree in 1903 in botany and zoology and another BSc degree in 1905 in botany and geology. A noted educationist in Baroda State, who gave him his abiding love of science, devotion to knowledge, and a rational outlook upon human relationships, all of which were to dominate his subsequent career. The study in geology was helped by the geological collections that were made under Maharaja Sayaji Rao Gaekwar. In 1905 he graduated with a M.A. in biology and geology and began to teach undergraduates. Education in geology in India at that time was restricted to the Universities of Calcutta and Madras where officers of the Geological Survey of India sometimes acted as part-time lecturers. At the age of 23, Wadia obtained the post of a Professor of Geology at the Prince of Wales College at Jammu and continued to work there for the next fourteen years.

Wadia found the college very supportive. The location also allowed him to make geological studies in the adjoining region. In 1909 he married Miss Alan G. Contractor. Their daughter however died in infancy. He spent vacations in the Himalayan region, collecting rocks and fossils. In 1919 he published a textbook of Geology for students, the first new work after the Manual of geology in India which had been revised in 1893. Several editions (sixth in 1966) were to be produced later and this continues to be a major text in Indian geology. In 1925 he discovered tusks and fragments of the extinct elephant-like animal already described as Stegodon ganesa.

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