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.

 

The building in 1802 of London’s first purpose-built docks, the West India Docks, led to surrounding districts such as Limehouse rapidly becoming populated with maritime workers. A new road was constructed – Commercial Road – to connect the city of London with its burgeoning docklands.

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.

The result was the building of a large number of seamens’ hostels, often run by
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 19^th 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.

 With the decline of the London dockyards in the 60s and 70s, demand for sailor accommodation slowed and eventually the Limehouse Seamen’s Mission became a hostel for the homeless (Prince’s Lodge) which closed in 1985. In 1994 the building was sold off to a developer who converted it into 50 private flats with a communal courtyard and a shared roof terrace. It has been re-named ‘The Mission’ and is Grade II-listed. 

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.

 

 

 References

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/