The Limehouse Seamen’s Mission
First glimpsed on a walk around Limehouse some years ago, I
had the opportunity during this year’s Open House event to venture inside this
iconic building at 747 Commercial Road. With its tall windows, long upright
mullions, and stone turrets, the structure looks for all the world like a
cathedral. It is only when you look at the inscription that you realise what
its function was, and how significant a role it played in London’s maritime
history.
Many of those working
on the ships or in the docks were what were known as ‘lascars’, a term which
was coined to describe any non-white sailor and included men from Africa and
the Middle-East as well as Asia. These were hired in large numbers and were the
majority on many ships. Captains often preferred ‘coloured seamen’ because they
could pay them less, were more comfortable in hotter climates and, if they were
Muslim, did not drink alcohol.
Limehouse quickly
grew into a diverse neighbourhood. The book ‘Living London’, published in 1902,
provides a vivid snapshot of how the area must have looked: “It is in the
crowded thoroughfares leading to the docks, in the lodging houses kept by East
Indians, in the shops frequented by Arabs, Indians, and Chinese, and in the
spirit houses and opium smoking rooms that one meets the most singular and most
picturesque types of Eastern humanity, and the most striking scenes of Oriental
life.”
The locals, however, were not so enamoured of these ‘foreign elements’ in their midst. By 1861
there had begun to be complaints about “an increase of low lodging houses
for sailors… and the removal of the more respectable families to other
localities.”
But not everybody
was hostile - many social reformers and religious organisations saw Limehouse
as a source of concern. It was observed how lascars that awaited their return
passages in London, were ill-treated, impoverished and neglected. Often men
jumped ship, choosing to starve on the streets rather than be subjected to the
hellish conditions on board ship. Others were abandoned by their employers when
they landed at port, either because they were not needed or because of
opposition from white seamen.
missionary societies who mostly wanted to provide a more wholesome alternative to other ‘low’ lodgings in the area. The largest and most famous organisation that responded to these issues was the Stranger’s Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders’ which opened in 1857 on West India Dock Road. There was also the Sailor’s Palace at 680 Commercial Road, a hostel run by the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society, built in 1901 and financed by the philanthropist Passmore Edwards. Other institutions sprang up to meet a clear demand.
The numbers of foreign sailors continued to grow during the 19th century and a large influx of Chinese workers, arriving from the 1880s onwards, gave rise to yet more suspicion of ‘foreigners’. By the 1920s, Limehouse was universally known as the capital’s Chinatown and became infamous for its opium dens. What’s more, the locals’ negative attitudes were further bolstered by books such as Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu series (Dr Fu Manchu was a diabolic character bent on world domination and destroying white civilization) which played up the issue of crime in the Chinese community. Fear of the ‘Yellow Peril’ was a real feature of the age. Thomas Cook even ran tours for ‘daring people’ wanting to gawp at strange, exotic foreigners!
To give an idea of
the size of the problem, by the end of WW1 16,000 seamen from all over the
world were being let loose in the city every night looking for lodgings. Only
three quarters of them would have any luck which meant “they were prey to all
temptations“, as the more scurrilous newspapers put it!
In the end, an appeal was started throughout the Empire, largely organised by women, (in particular the Ladies’ Guild of the British Sailors’ Society, headed by Beatrice, Lady Dimsdale) to raise the necessary money to build this hostel, which would also stand as a memorial to the 12,000 merchant sailors who were killed in service during the First World War.
When it opened in
1924 the hostel, known as the Empire Memorial Sailors’ Hostel, provided 205
clean and airy single ‘cabins’ and these were much in demand, with sailors
having to book in advance to guarantee a place. By 1929 the hostel had provided
beds for over a million sailors. As well as a cabin of your own you would also have
access to a large lounge, dining-hall, billiard room and a chapel. In the 1930s
a room would cost 1/6 a night or 8 shillings a week. Such was the success of
the Memorial Hostel that a second wing was built in 1932 round the corner on
Salmon Lane with 100 cabins and a large function room.
Despite taking on a whole new guise, the building’s earlier character is reflected in details such as maritime-themed carving and attractive detailing on the stairways etc.
Webpage: https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/chinese-limehouse-and-mr-ma-and-son
Webpage: https://tammytourguide.wordpress.com/2023/04/05/discovering-the-chinese-in-britain/
