Pallonji Dadabhoy Chowna
Pallonji Dadabhoy Chowna (c1862-1934)
1934 Obituary [1]
PALLONJI DADABHOY CHOWNA was for nearly forty years senior partner in the firm of Drewet Chowna and Company, engineers and machinery agents, of Bombay. He was born in Bombay, where he received his technical education at the University.
From 1884 to 1889 he was apprenticed to Mr. T. Drewet, M.I.Mech.E., of Bombay, who was senior boiler inspector of the Presidency of Bombay under the British Government.
In 1889 Mr. Chowna obtained a first-class certificate of competency under the Bombay Boiler Inspection Act (1887). He then superintended the erection of factories and machinery, and in 1895 went into business as a consulting engineer on his own account.
In the same year the firm of Drewet Chowna and Company was formed, and Mr. Chowna became senior partner, holding this position until his death, which occurred on 28th June 1934, in his seventy-third year. He brought out his own design of the special hydraulic machinery used in cotton baling presses. The firm acted as agents for a number of well-known British engineering companies, and Mr. Chowna introduced British-made hydraulic cotton presses and other associated machinery into India.
He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1912.