lascars

Inauguration of the East London Mosque

Date: 
01 Aug 1941
Precise date unknown: 
N
End date: 
01 Aug 1941
Precise end date unknown: 
N
Event location: 

446, 448, 450 Commercial Road, London E1

About: 

This event marked the culmination of decades of planning and organisation towards a London mosque to serve the needs of east London South Asian Muslim lascars and other workers. The event was organised by the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin and attended by approximately 300 people, including several soldiers from the Indian Company of the Pioneer corps in the charge of Lieutenant C. S. K. Pathy, and representatives from a range of Muslim countries. Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, Chairman of the Executive Committee, gave a welcome speech which was followed by the official opening ceremony performed by Hassan Nachat Pasha and prayers led by Sheikh Hafiz Wahba, Minister of Saudi Arabia. Sir Ernest Hotson, Honorary Secretary of the Executive Committee, spoke on the origin and development of the London Mosque Scheme, and Said Amir Shah and Ahmaddin Qureshi spoke on behalf of the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin. Copies of a booklet entitled 'The Millat of Islam and the Menace of "Islamism"' written by C. Rahmat Ali of the Pakistan National Movement were distributed. There were also some non-Muslims from the South Asian community present, including C. L. Katial.

Organizer: 
Jamiat-ul-Muslimin
People involved: 

Sir Hassan Suhrawardy (Chairman of Executive Committee)

Sir Ernest Hotson (Honorary Secretary)

Sheikh Hafiz Wahba (Minister of Saudi Arabia)

Hassan Nachat Pasha

Said Amir Shah (on behalf of the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin)

Ahmed Din Qureshi (on behalf of the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin)

C. L. Katial

Published works: 

Pamphlet commemorating the opening ceremony of the East London Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre.

Secondary works: 

Ansari, Humayun, The Making of the East London Mosque: 1910-1951. Minutes of the London Mosque Fund and East London Mosque Trust Ltd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Archive source: 

File IOR: L/PJ/12/468, African and Asian Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Tags for Making Britain: 

Hindustan Community House

About: 

This organization, founded by the wealthy Indian Kundan Lal Jalie in 1937, aimed to cater to the needs of Indians in east London, especially former lascars, by offering them low-cost lodging, as well as food and clothing, and helping them to secure employment. Further, Indian doctors volunteered at the centre, providing free medical advice to their working-class compatriots, and English classes were offered, both to workers and to children. The HCH was also a social centre, providing a gramophone and records to enable East End South Asians to listen to Indian music, as well as facilities for games and sport. The HCH was made possible by donations from wealthy Britons, including, reportedly, Edith Ramsay, as well as a Cambridge undergraduate named Thomas Tufton who donated £22,000 after hearing Jalie lecture on the plight of Indians in Britain. The centre was razed in the blitz, and its residents taken first to Tilbury and then to Coventry to find work.

Although ostensibly a social organization, the HCH also had political links. A government surveillance report from 1939 remarks on the Communist and anti-British propaganda being carried out among Indian seamen and pedlars at the organization, and suggests that Jalie encouraged this. Surveillance reports on Jalie also remark on his links with the India League and the Indian Seamen’s Welfare League

Example: 

Hindustan Community House First Report, April 1940, Tower Hamlets Archives Collection

Secondary works: 

Solokoff, Bertha, Edith and Stepney (London: Stepney Books Publications, 1987)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Content: 

This report of the Hindustan Community House outlines its aims and objectives under the headings ‘Food, clothing and shelter’, ‘Medical work’, ‘Employment’, ‘Educational’ and ‘Social’, and acknowledges the financial support and social work that made it possible.

Date began: 
01 Jan 1937
Extract: 

Since the completion of the House, fifty men have lived in it and another fifty have taken meals in it. Indian or English food is available for these men. To enable the fullest use to be made of the House its charges for board of lodging are fixed at the lowest possible figure.

The House has been able to accommodate shipwrecked sailors, and Indians stranded in London.

Two Indian doctors, who have returned to India, attended the weekly clinic and gave free medical advice. The new surgery has been equipped by an Indian doctor. It is open three nights a week for free medical advice and attention. A fourth Indian doctor is in charge.

Two classes in English with an average of fifteen to twenty students were held every week night. These were discontinued on account of the war, but have since been restarted.

A class in English and Urdu for Indian children was discontinued owing to the evacuation of the children.

Precise date began unknown: 
Y
Key Individuals' Details: 

Kundan Lal Jalie

Relevance: 

This extract gives evidence of a developing sense of community among Indians in London in the 1930s and 1940s. The involvement of Indian doctors in the House, as well as the English classes and indeed its very establishment by Jalie, emphasize the existence of significant interaction between the Indian working class and middle class in Britain and the transgression of social boundaries by virtue of a shared national and/or ethnic minority identity. The fact that the residents of the House were offered Indian food as well as English food, and that classes were offered in Urdu as well as English, suggests the combination of an accommodation to British culture with a retention of indigenous cultural practices – perhaps a consequence of the fact that this welfare work was carried out by Indians (rather than by the British).

Connections: 

Lord Halifax (attended the opening centre of the HCH), Edith Ramsay (donated money to the HCH and offered advice and help to the Indians who frequented it), Lord Snell (attended the opening centre of the HCH).

Date ended: 
01 Jan 1941
Archive source: 

First Report, Tower Hamlets Archives Collection

L/PJ/12/630, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Precise date ended unknown: 
Y

Indian Comforts Fund

About: 

The Indian Comforts Fund provided humanitarian relief by British women for Indian soldiers and seamen. The Fund was initiated by Viscountess Chelmsford in December 1939 to provide for the war needs of Indian troops and Indian Seamen in Europe. The Fund was maintained uninterruptedly on an ever-growing scale throughout the war years. It was closed in December 1945. The Indian High Commissioner Firoz Khan Noon made space available for the fund at India House, Aldwych.

It was a voluntary organization that at the height of its activities in 1943 had mobilized around 100,000 individual knitters, providing woollen clothing for Indian POW’s, merchant seamen and others. It made a number of appeals for funds to buy wool for distribution to women who were organizing knitting parties. Once funding was secured, wool was supplied by the Personal Service League. It also provided ‘comforts’ for the Indian Contingent in France and relief for Indian seamen survivors and released POW’s from German and Italian camps. By April 1940 the Fund also cooperated with the Merchant Navy Comfort Service.

The Fund coordinated the packing of over 1.5 million food parcels for Indian POW’s in Europe, which would be sent to the Red Cross in Geneva for distribution. It also worked together with the Indian POW reception unit in the UK. The Fund made provisions for entertainments for Indian troops in Britain by supplying gifts such as gramophone records, books, and sports materials. The Fund also provided financial assistance to the large number of Indian seamen arriving at British ports.

The work of the Fund was a team effort where Indians and Britons interacted and collaborated to alleviate the plight of Indian soldiers and sailors as POWs and while stationed in the UK. The Fund worked in cooperation with the British Red Cross, Order of St John of Jerusalem, Director of Voluntary Organisations, Shipwrecked Mariners Society, and the Missions to Seamen and also cooperated with the Indian Red Cross. It was officially recognised by the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry in 1940.

Cornelia Sorabji donated her royalties from Queen Mary's Book of India to the Fund.

Published works: 

Shepherd, Claude, War Record of the Indian Comforts Fund, December, 1939 to December, 1945 (London: Indian Comforts Fund, 1946)

Example: 

Shepherd, Claude, War Record of the Indian Comforts Fund, December, 1939 to December, 1945 (London: Indian Comforts Fund, 1946)

Content: 

In the brochure published by the Fund in 1946 the Indian High Commissioner S. E. Runganadhan hails the contribution of the Indian Comforts Fund.

Date began: 
01 Dec 1939
Extract: 

The Indian Comforts Fund marks a glorious chapter in the history of Indo-British relations during the war, and its mission of goodwill and practical help will ever be remembered with affection and gratitude by the people of my country.

Key Individuals' Details: 

Mr F. J. Adams (1940-5), Mrs Waris Ameer Ali (1940), L. S. Amery (1940-5), Duchess of Atholl (1940-5), Lady Atkinson (1942-5), Lady Benthall (1940-5), Field Marshall Lord Birdwood (1942-5), Lady Doris Blacker (1940-5), Lady Bonamjee (1940-5), Lt. General Sir Ernest Bradfield (1940-5), Captain J. J. Cameron (1940-5), Lady Chatterjee (1940-5), Dowager Viscountess Chelmsford (founder), Lady Croker (1940-5), Lady Currie (1940-5), Duchess of Devonshire (1940-2), Lady Donington (1940-5), Mrs D. N. Dutt (1940-5), Lord Erskin (1940-5), Lady Marjorie Erskine (1940-5), Miss Christian Gretton (1940-5), Mrs Gupta (1940-5), Viscountess Halifax (1940-5), Lady Flora Hastings (1940-5), Lady Hodges (1940-5), M. Azizul Huque (1942-3) (Indian High Commissioner), Mrs Husain (1940-5), Mr S. Lall (1940-3), Mrs S. Lall (1940-3), Mrs G. A. Leslie (1940-5), Lady Lloyd (1940-5), Lady MacCaw (1940-5), Lady Meek (1940-5), Lady Middleton (1940-5), Mrs James Mills (1940-5), Mrs Monahan (1940-5), Mrs John Monck (1940-5), Marie, Countess of Munster (1943-4), Mrs Nation (1940-5), Firoz Khan Noon (1940-1), Lady Pears (1940-5), Lady Runganadhan (1944-5), Samuel Runganadhan (1944-5)(Indian High Commissioner), Sir Hassan Suhrawardy (1940-3), Admiral Sir Reginald Tupper (1940-4), Miss Irene Ward, MP (1940-5), Lady Wheeler (1940-5), Marchioness of Willingdon (1940-5), Earl Winterton (1940-5), Countess Winterton (1940-5), Marquess of Zetland (1940). 

Executive Committee: Chairman: Mrs L. S. Amery (1940-5) Members: Duchess of Devonshire (1940-2), Countess of Munster (1943-4), Lady Dornington (1940-5), Lady Katherine Nicholson (1944-5), Lady Atkinson (1942-5), Lady Currie (1940-5), Lady MacCaw (1940-5), Lady Runganadhan (1944-5), Lady Wheeler (1940-5), Mrs John Monck (1940-5), Mrs D. N. Dutt (1940-5), Mrs S. Lall (1940-3), Mrs G. A. Leslie (1940-5), Mrs R. M. M. Lockhart (1943-4), Mrs James Mills (1940-5), Mrs Nanda (1943-5) Mrs Charles Stainforth (1944), Miss P. Alison (1945), Miss M. I. Goodfellow (1941-5), Miss Terry Lewis (1940-3), Lt. General Sir Ernest Bradfield (1940-5), Sir Hassan Suhrawardy (1940-3), Admiral Sir Reginald Tupper (1940-4), Mr F. J. Adams (1940-5), Colonel H. L. Barstow (1945), Captain J. J. Cameron (1940-5), Mr S. Lall (1940-3), Colonel A. Wakeham (1944).

Treasurers: C. W. Waddington (1940), Henry Wheeler (1940-5); Secretary: Mrs John Monck (1940-1), Colonel Claude Shepherd (1941-5); Dep. Secretary: H. M. Burrows (1944-5); Assistant Secretaries: Miss M. I. Goodfellow (1940), Mrs Stainforth (1941-2), Miss P. Alison (1942-4); Accountant: Mr A. M. Menon (1940-45).

Connections: 
Date ended: 
01 Dec 1945
Archive source: 

L/I/1/837, India Offica Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Location

India House
Aldwych
London, WC2B 1NA
United Kingdom
Involved in events details: 

Sophia Duleep Singh

About: 

Sophia Duleep Singh was the fifth child of six children of the Maharaja Duleep Singh. Her father became the Maharaja of Punjab in 1843 when he was aged just five years old, but the Punjab was subsequently annexed in 1849. The Maharaja, of Sikh background, converted to Christianity and eventually settled in England, becoming a naturalized British citizen and receiving a British pension. Sophia's mother, Bamba Müller, came from German and Ethiopian ancestry. The family settled in Elveden Hall in Norfolk where Sophia was born in 1876. In 1896, Queen Victoria gave Sophia 'Faraday House' in Hampton Court as a 'grace and favour' home, and it is here that she lived for most of her adult life. Sophia was a keen cyclist and fond of her three dogs - she showed her pets at Ladies Kennel Association shows.

Sophia was highly involved in the patronage of Indians in Britain, such as in the establishment of the Lascars' Club in the East End of London. Her main focus of activity, however, was in the women's suffrage movement. She had joined the Women's Social and Political Union at the home of Una Dugdale and became an active campaigner at the Richmond, Surrey, branch of the WSPU. On 18 November 1910, she took part in the first deputation to the House of Commons, 'Black Friday', with Emmeline Pankhurst, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and others. Sophia joined the Tax Resistance League (WTRL). She refused to pay taxes on the principle that women should not have to pay taxes when they did not have the vote to determine the use of those taxes. This stance led to various fines where jewellery was impounded but then bought back in auction by members of the WTRL. These actions created a high profile stand for the women's movement.

Sophia was also involved in bringing attention to the contribution of Indian soldiers in the First World War. Sophia visited wounded Indian soldiers in Brighton. She organized Flag Days to raise money for wounded soldiers - the first of which was on 19 October 1916 at Haymarket - where British and Indian women sold Indian flags decorated with elephants, stars or other objects. Sophia also entertained Indian soldiers who were part of a peace contingent at her home in Hampton Court in September 1919. Sophia joined the Suffragette Fellowship after World War One and remained a fellow until her death. During the Second World War, Sophia evacuated London and her home in Hampton Court to live in the village of Penn in Buckinghamshire, in a bungalow named 'Rathenrae'.

Example: 

Letter from Princess Sophia Duleep Singh to Nancy Grant, from Faraday House, 29 April 1911. Autograph Collection, 9/01 Women's Suffrage, Women's Library, London Metropolitan University

Date of birth: 
08 Aug 1876
Content: 

Sophia is responding to an invitation to a Suffrage meeting in Richmond at which Nancy Grant has requested that she speak a few words to support their resolution.

Connections: 

E. J. Beck, K. Chowdry (founder of Lascar Club), Charlotte DespardMillicent Garrett Fawcett, Mithan Lam, Emmeline Pankhurst, John Pollen, Mrs N. C. Sen, Maharaja Duleep Singh (Father), Frederick Duleep Singh (brother), Catherine Duleep Singh (sister), Victor Duleep Singh (brother), Herabai Tata, Queen Victoria, Ada Wright.

British Dominions Woman Suffrage Union, Women's Social and Political Union, Women's Tax Resistance League.

Reviews: 

Asiatic Review

Indian Magazine and Review

The Sketch (1896)

The Suffragette

The Times

Votes for Women

Extract: 

I will come on the 9th to the meeting with pleasure. I hope you have found someone else to support the resolution, if not I will do so, but very much prefer not to, + I shall only say about 5 words!

Secondary works: 

Alexander, Michael and Anand, Sushila, Queen Victoria's Maharajah: Duleep Singh 1838-1893 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980)

Bance, Peter, The Duleep Singhs: The Photograph Album of Queen Victoria’s Maharajah (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2004)

Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 (London: UCL Press, 1999)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain. 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Visram, Rozina, 'Duleep Singh, Princess Sophia Alexandra (1876–1948)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/64/101064781/]

Relevance: 

This letter reveals not only Sophia's intimate involvement with the Richmond Women's Suffrage Movement, but also her fear of public speaking, which is evident in other letters. Despite her fears, Sophia did take up an extremely high profile stand for female suffrage in Britain.

Archive source: 

Papers of Maharaja Duleep Singh and children, Mss Eur E377, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Correspondence in Sandhwalia Family Papers (private)

Letter from a Sikh soldier describing her visit at Milford-on-sea, Mss Eur F143/91, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Suffragette Fellowship Collection, Museum of London, London 

Letters to Miss Newsome and Nancy Grant, Autograph Collection, Women's Library, London Metropolitan University, London

 

City of birth: 
Norfolk
Country of birth: 
England
Other names: 

Princess Sophia Duleep Singh

Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh

Locations

Elveden, Suffolk
IP24 3TA
United Kingdom
52° 23' 6.7776" N, 0° 41' 13.2648" E
Hampton Court Green, Surrey
KT8 9BS
United Kingdom
51° 23' 28.986" N, 0° 20' 41.784" W
Date of death: 
22 Aug 1948
Location of death: 
Buckinghamshire, England
Location: 

Elveden Hall, Norfolk (childhood home)

Faraday House, Hampton Court (home during adulthood)

Richmond (location for Suffrage meetings)

'Rathenrae', Penn, Buckinghamshire (home where she died)

Golders Green (where she was cremated)

Glasgow Indian Union

About: 

The Glasgow Indian Union (GIU) took up a number of political issues concerning Indians in Glasgow. Following the Special Restriction (Coloured Seamen) Order of 1925, which registered seamen as 'alien' if they did not have documentary proof of their nationality, the Glasgow Indian Union lodged a letter of protest to the India Office. Sixty-three Indians in Glasgow had been registered as aliens. In 1943, the GIU appealed to the British Government for the immediate release of M. K. Gandhi from prison.

The membership of the Glasgow Indian Union appeared to consist of a mix of students, Indians who had settled in Glasgow, and lascars. Government surveillance reports in 1923 noted concerns about some of the radical tendencies of its members. However, the GIU was not merely a political union, but provided a social meeting place for Indians in the Scottish city. In 1941, for example, the GIU held a meeting to commemmorate the death of Rabindranath Tagore with readings from his plays and poems.

Other names: 

GIU

Secondary works: 

Maan, Bashir, The New Scots: The Story of Asians in Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1992)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Date began: 
01 Jan 1911
Precise date began unknown: 
Y
Archive source: 

Glasgow Indian Union to India Office, 17 February 1926, HO45/12314, National Archives, Kew

L/E/9/953, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/159, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Glasgow Herald, 16 August 1941, 1 March 1943

Location

Glasgow, G1 1BX
United Kingdom
Tags for Making Britain: 

Joseph Salter

About: 

Joseph Salter was a missionary based in the East End of London who focused his energies on 'Asiatics'. He worked for the London City Mission. Salter was the first and resident missionary at the Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Asians and South Sea Islanders, founded in 1857. The Maharaja Duleep Singh was one of the main benefactors for the Home. Salter wrote two books about his work with ex-lascars and other immigrants through this Home and his work in the area. He dedicated his first book to Duleep Singh. Salter gave various ethnographic sketches of the different people he met through his missionary work. He met Indians from the upper classes as well working class. He studied Hindi with the valet of Meer Jafur, the son of a courtier to the Gaekwad of Baroda, in order to evangelize to London-based Indians. Salter also helped establish the Ayahs' Home in Aldgate.

Published works: 

The Asiatic in England: Sketches of Sixteen Years among Orientals (London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday, 1873)

The East in the West (London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 1896)

Connections: 
Secondary works: 

Fisher, Michael, Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain 1600-1857 (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004)

Mathur, Saloni, India by Design: Colonial History and Cultural Display (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Archive source: 

L/PJ/6/2122, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Tags for Making Britain: 

E. B. Bhose

About: 

E. B. Bhose was a missionary in charge of lascars in Britain. He was originally from Bengal and had worked with coolies in the West Indies before arriving in Britain. He was part of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

In 1887, Bhose was appointed chaplain at St Luke's Lascar Mission in Victoria Docks. His mission room was also used as a Sunday school and a club room for leisure activities. Bhose visited lascars on the ships. He wrote regular mission reports which noted the observance of Muslim festivals by lascars in the ports. He died in 1905.

Contributions to periodicals: 

St Andrew's Waterside Church Mission Reports

Secondary works: 

Barrett, Daniel William, Sketches of Church Life in the Counties of Essex and Hertfordshire (London: Skeffington & Son, 1902)

Miller, Robert, From Shore to Shore (R. Miller, 1989)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Other names: 

Reverend E. B. Bhose

Location

St Luke's Lascar Mission E16 1SL
United Kingdom
51° 30' 44.5644" N, 0° 0' 52.7868" E
Date of death: 
01 Mar 1905
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Location of death: 
England
Location: 

St Luke's Lascar Mission, Victoria Docks, London

Tags for Making Britain: 

Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order (1925)

Date: 
18 Mar 1925
Event location: 

The Order was originally carried into effect in the port areas of Glamorgan, Cardiff, Newport, Swansea, Carmarthenshire, Liverpool, Salford, Newcastle-on-Tyne, South Shields, Middlesbrough and Hull. In January 1926, it was extended throughout Britain.

About: 

The Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen's) Order is described by Laura Tabili as 'the first instance of state-sanctioned race discrimination inside Britain to come to widespread notice' (p. 56). The work of the Home Office Aliens Department, the Order was issued under Article II of the Aliens Order of 1920 and stated that 'coloured' seamen who did not possess documentary proof of their status as British must register as 'aliens' in Britain 'whether or not they have been in the United Kingdom for more than two months'. Police were to apprehend 'coloured' men disembarking from ships and report them to the police if they failed to show their documentation. In practice, it was not easy for 'coloured' seamen to prove that they were British subjects because sailors were not required to carry passports and, unlike those of their white counterparts, 'coloured' seamen's discharge certificates were not considered proof of their nationality because of allegations of trafficking in these papers.

Reasons for the issue of the Order are various and debated. In a letter dated 14 August 1926, the Under-Secretary of State cites the demands made at the end of the First World War by the National Sailor and Fireman's Union that 'steps should be taken to restrict the admission to this country of coloured seamen who could not establish that they were British subjects, since they competed in the overstocked labour market for seamen and were a source of grave discontent among British sailors', and claims that the accumulation of 'coloured seamen' in certain ports 'was a continual source of irritation and...likely to lead to a breach of the peace' (HO 45/12314). However, by the mid-1920s, employment in the shipping industry was beginning to pick up, which calls these reasons into question. Further, historians have recently questioned the role of the Union in pushing forward this piece of legislation, arguing that it was the state that played a more significant role.

State officials, determined to deport 'coloured' seamen, interpreted and enforced the rules rigidly, depriving these men of their citizenship. The India Office and Colonial Office received numerous protests from seamen who claimed that police were using the order to target men who were obviously British subjects. Further, officials erroneously applied the rules to non-seamen, for example registering 63 Glasgow-based Indians, most of whom worked as peddlers and labourers, as 'aliens'. Indians in Liverpool protested in the form of a public rally and through founding the Indian Seamen's Union, led by N. J. Upadhyaya. The India Office, fearful of the public outcry triggered by the Order in India, reprimanded the Home Office, even suggesting that all Indians should be issued with passports - a suggestion that was not received favourably by the Home Office. Finally, it was agreed that Indian seamen registered as 'aliens' could apply to the Home Office to have their British nationality verified. They would then be issued with a Special Certificate of Identity and Nationality which would enable their registration to be cancelled. The Order was finally revoked in 1942.

People involved: 

P. S. R. Chowdhury (Secretary of the Glasgow Indian Union which contested the registration of the 63 Glasgow-based Indians), Home Secretary Joynson-Hicks (passed the Order), N. J. Upadhyaya (founded the Indian Seamen's Union as a result of the Order).

Secondary works: 

Lane, Tony, 'The Political Imperatives of Bureaucracy and Empire: The Case of the Coloured Alien Seamen Order, 1925', Immigrants and Minorities 13.2-3 (July/November 1994), pp. 104-29

Little, Kenneth, Negroes in Britain: A Study of Racial Relations in English Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, [1948] 1972)

Rich, Paul B., Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 122–30

Sherwood, Marika, ‘Race, Nationality and Employment among Lascar Seamen, 1660–1945’, New Community 17.2 (January 1991), pp. 234–5

Tabili, Laura, ‘The Construction of Racial Difference in Twentieth-Century Britain: The Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order, 1925’, Journal of British Studies 33 (January 1994), pp. 54–98

Tabili, Laura, ‘We Ask for British Justice’: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1994)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Example: 

Letter from the Under-Secretary of State to the Chief Constables of scheduled areas, 23 March 1925, HO 45/12314, National Archives, Kew

Content: 

The file contains correspondence and reports by state and police officials relating to the Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen's) Order, 1925.

Extract: 

I am directed by the Secretary of State to inform you that he has recently had under consideration measures to facilitate the control of coloured alien seamen at present in this country and to prevent more effectively the entry of others into the United Kingdom without proper authority; and he has come to the conclusion that in order to deal with the problem presented by these aliens – particularly those of them who are ‘Arabs’ – it is necessary that they should be required to register in all cases, including those where the alien has hitherto been exempt under Article 6(5) of the Aliens Order, 1920, by reason of the fact that less than two months has elapsed since his last arrival in the United Kingdom or that he is not resident in the United Kingdom.

…The difficulties [of the present situation] arise mainly from the fact that the racial resemblance between many coloured seamen is such that there is no satisfactory means of identifying individuals; and the primary object which the Secretary of State has in view is to remedy this deficiency by requiring every coloured seamen…unless he is able to show that he is a British subject, to provide himself immediately with a document by which he can be readily identified and on which his entry into the United Kingdom (if duly authorised by grant of leave to land) can be recorded.

Relevance: 

The language used in this passage - in particular the words 'control' and 'aliens' - is indicative of the perceived threat posed by 'coloured' seamen to the nation. The vagueness of the words 'problem' and 'difficulties' is suggestive of the concealment of some of the unmentionable reasons for the entrenchment of barriers to these sailors' entry into Britain (i. e., racism) - which are however hinted at with the mention of the 'racial resemblance' of the seamen. In general, the passage is illustrative of the strategies of control used in an attempt to maintain the racial and cultural homogeneity of Britain - and also of the failure of this.

Archive source: 

HO 45/12314, National Archives, Kew

1919 Race Riots

Date: 
01 Jan 1919
Precise date unknown: 
Y
End date: 
01 Aug 1919
Precise end date unknown: 
Y
Event location: 

London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff, Salford, Hull, South Shields, Newport, Barry.

About: 

In the wake of the First World War and demobilization, the surplus of labour led to dissatisfaction among Britain’s workers, in particular seamen. This was arguably the key factor that led to the outbreak of rioting between white and minority workers in Britain’s major seaports, from January to August 1919. Along with African, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese and Arab sailors, South Asians were targeted because of the highly competitive nature of the job market and the perception that these minorities were ‘stealing’ the jobs that should belong to white indigenous British workers. The housing shortage due to a lack of materials and labour during the war exacerbated the situation. The issue of ‘aliens’ taking jobs and houses from white workers was raised in the House of Commons. Further, as Indian seamen were hired at a considerably lower rate than their white counterparts and had to tolerate much poor working and living conditions, they were blamed by unions for undercutting the wages of white workers. Of course, racism, and specifically the fear of miscegenation, also motivated the hostility towards these settlers.

During the months of racially motivated violence in 1919 there were violent attacks on minority workers, resulting in five fatalities, as well as vandalization of their homes and properties. South Asians suffered somewhat less than black or Chinese workers as they were not regarded as such direct competition for jobs and housing; most remained within the navy and within their subsidized accommodation rather than seeking alternative employment and accommodation. However, a number of incidents involving South Asians have been traced. In May 1919, the Strangers’ Home for Asiatic Seamen in West India Dock Road was surrounded by a hostile crowd and ‘any coloured man who appeared was greeted with abuse and had to be escorted by the police. It was necessary at times to bar the doors of the Home’ (The Times, 30 May 1919). Newspapers of the time also report the devastation of a Malay boarding house and the shop of one Abdul Satar in Cardiff (Visram, p. 199).

Secondary works: 

Evans, Neil, ‘The South Wales Race Riots of 1919’, Llafur 3 (1980), pp. 5-29

Jenkinson, Jacqueline, Black 1919: Riots, Racism and Resistance in Imperial Britain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009)

May, Roy and Cohen, Robin, ‘The Interaction between Race and Colonialism: A Case Study of the Liverpool Race Riots of 1919’, Race and Class XVI.2 (1974), pp. 111-26

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Example: 

East End News, 22 April 1919, p. 2

Content: 

This is an extract from an East End News report of a racial incident preceding the major outbreak of rioting. The article reports an attack by white men on an Arab restaurant that was frequented by white women.

Extract: 

There has been some friction between the Arabs and some English girls visiting an Arab eating house in Cable Street. On Wednesday a number of ex-soldiers entered the eating-house and soon afterwards revolver shots were fired. A general fight followed in which revolvers, knives and bottles were used. A large and hostile crowd gathered outside the restaurant and were very menacing in their attitude towards the coloured men inside. A large number of policemen arrived, but were unable for some time to gain admission. After the fight had been in progress for some time however, they managed to get the wounded men and their prisoners away.

Relevance: 

This extract illuminates the fear of black male sexuality and particularly miscegenation on the part of normative British culture in this period, and the way in which this fear contributed to the hostility and violence experienced by minority workers. While the focus here is on an attack on an Arab restaurant, similar concerns shaped the public response to Indian as well as African men.

Archive source: 

Local newspapers held at local libraries or at the British Library Newspaper Collection, Colindale, London

East London Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre

About: 

In November 1910, a fund for a mosque in London was established. By 1926, a deed of trust was executed and the fund became known as the London Mosque Fund. Trustees included distinguished Muslims such as Syed Ameer Ali, Firoz Khan Noon and the Aga Khan, as well as sympathetic British peers. Until 1928, the trustees arranged for prayers to be held at various addresses in west London. Poor attendance and the eventual realization that the majority of Muslims in London lived in its East End led to the relocation of prayer meetings to the King’s Hall on Commercial Road in 1935. At this point, the trustees handed over the organization of prayer meetings and religious functions to the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin, an east London based organization.

The desirability of a mosque to meet the needs of the many seamen and other working-class Indians who inhabited the East End and attended these meetings was keenly felt, and in 1940 three adjoining houses on Commercial Road were purchased and converted into the East London Mosque. The mosque was inaugurated by the Egyptian Ambassador, Hassan Nachat Pasha, at a ceremony that took place on 1 August 1941. The ceremony was attended by approximately 300, including representatives from the Indian Company of the Pioneer Corps, and speeches were made by Sir Hassan Suhrawardy (Muslim Advisor to the Secretary of State for India), Sir Ernest Hotson (on behalf of the London Mosque Fund Trust), and Said Amir Shah and Ahmed Din Qureshi as officials of the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin.

Also located at the East London Mosque was the Indigent Moslems Burial Fund which raised money to provide for the burial of Muslims in Britain and the upkeep of their graves. The Islamic Cultural Centre, which was still in need of funds and at the planning stage in the mid-1940s, aimed to provide ‘secular education combined with facilities for vocational and technical training in an Islamiah Madrassah’.

Example: 

Extract from Metropolitan Police Report, 14 October 1943, L/PJ/12/468, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras, pp. 269, 271

Secondary works: 

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Content: 

This Indian Political Intelligence file documents the activities of Muslims in Britain from the 1920s to the 1940s. It includes government reports and correspondence between key Muslim figures and British government officials relating in particular to the establishment of the East London Mosque and the Central Mosque (Regent's Park), and proposals for the establishment of the Nizamiah Mosque (West Kensington). It also includes a copy of the pamphlet produced for the inauguration of the mosque in 1941.

Date began: 
01 Aug 1941
Extract: 

The Jamiat…resolved to hold a public meeting at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.1 on 10th October 1943, at which the Executive Committee of the Jamiat decided to state its case…

This meeting was attended by about 400 persons, the majority of whom were Punjabi and Bengali Muslims…While there was no disorder there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement and little encouragement would have been needed to inflame the passions of those present…

Khan…gave a history of the LONDON MOSQUE FUND, making it quite plain that it was only through the agitation of the JAMIAT that the East London Mosque came into being. When the Jamiat came into being in 1934, no effort had been made to build a mosque and it was only after repeated representations to individual Trustees by members of the JAMIAT that any move was made to implement the objects for which the LONDON MOSQUE FUND was raised.

Referring to the ISLAMIC CULTURE CENTRE, he said the JAMIAT had never favoured the financial support given by the British Council. Muslim institutions were not in need of donations from un-Islamic organisations as there was enough money among Muslims to endow a purely Islamic scheme.

Said Amir SHAH repeated, in Urdu, the history of the LONDON MOSQUE FUND, but he struck a personal note, and he implied that the India Office ran the affairs of the Mosque through its representatives, the Trustees. He did not consider the Muslim Trustees as good Muslims, declaring that they put the interests of the British Government before their duty to Islam. He mentioned the name of Sir Hassan Suhrawardy whom he alleged never came to the Mosque merely to pray – there was always a sinister motive for his casual visits.

Key Individuals' Details: 

Abdullah Yusuf Ali (trustee), Syed Ameer Ali (original member of the Board of Trustees for the London Mosque Fund), Waris Ameer Ali (trustee), Munshi Ghulam Mohammed Buta (Arab who led prayers at the mosque), Sir Ernest Hotson, The Aga Khan (President of the Board of Trustees), Sahibdad Khan (Secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin), Firoz Khan Noon (High Commissioner of India in England, 1936-41, and trustee), Hassan Nachat Pasha, Said Amir Shah (Treasurer of the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin), Hassan Suhrawardy (Muslim Advisor to Secretary of State for India, Chairman of the Board of Trustees).

Relevance: 

This is an extract from a police account of a meeting held by the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin, an organization integral to the inauguration and management of the East London Mosque, in protest at the notice served against them by the board of trustees as a result of a dispute regarding control of the mosque's affairs. Evident here is mobilization on the part of a group of working-class South Asian Muslims in Britain, suggesting a significant and perhaps surprising degree of agency on their part. Evident also in this dispute between members of the Jamiat (largely working class) and the Board of Trustees (largely elite and partly British) is a desire for cultural autonomy on the part of the Muslim protesters, as well as division and dissent along lines of class within the South Asian Muslim 'community' in London, which is in turn suggestive of the significant role played by class (as well as faith) in the experience and identity formation of South Asian migrants in Britain.

Connections: 

Ayub Ali (Treasurer of the East London branch of the India League, involved with Jamiat), Dr Mohammed Buksh (original President of the Jamiat), Allah Dad Khan (involved with Jamiat, Treasurer at some point), Ghulam Mohammed (Co-Secretary of the Jamiat), Ahmad Din Quereshi (silk merchant and Co-Secretary of the Jamiat).

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/468, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/646, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Locations

446-450 Commercial Road
London, E1 2NE
United Kingdom
46-92 Whitechapel Road
London, E1 1DN
United Kingdom
Involved in events details: 

Inauguration ceremony, 1 August 1941

Dispute between the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin and the trustees of the East London Mosque regarding the management of religious ceremonies and other duties, October 1943

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