Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders

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The Strangers' Home The Strangers Home, Limehouse.jpg
The Strangers' Home
Prince Albert lays the foundation stone of the Strangers' Home, 31 May 1856 Prince Albert lays the foundation stone of the Strangers' Home 31 May 1856.jpg
Prince Albert lays the foundation stone of the Strangers' Home, 31 May 1856

The Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders (opened 1857) was a residential home in West India Dock Road, in the Limehouse district of London, that provided accommodation for Asian and black sailors (lascars), acted as a "repatriation centre" and was a platform for Christian missionary activity.

West India Dock Road Street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets

West India Dock Road is a road in Limehouse and is in London's East End. It connected Commercial Road with the entrance to the West India Docks.

Limehouse district in East London, England

Limehouse is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. It is 3.9 miles (6.3 km) east of Charing Cross, on the northern bank of the River Thames. Its proximity to the river has given it a strong maritime character, which it retains through its riverside public houses and steps, such as The Grapes and Limehouse Stairs. It was part of the traditional county of Middlesex, but became part of the County of London following the passing of the Local Government Act 1888, and then part of Greater London in 1965. It is located between Stepney to the west and north, Mile End and Bow to the northwest, Poplar to the east, and Canary Wharf and Millwall to the south, and stretches from the end of Cable Street and Butcher Row in the west to Stainsby Road near Bartlett Park in the east, and from West India Dock and the River Thames in the south to Salmon Lane and Rhodeswell Road in the north.

A Christian mission is an organized effort to spread Christianity to new converts. Missions involve sending individuals and groups, called missionaries, across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as educational or hospital work. Sometimes individuals are sent and are called missionaries. When groups are sent, they are often called mission teams and they do mission trips. There are a few different kinds of mission trips: short-term, long-term, relational and ones meant simply for helping people in need. Some might choose to dedicate their whole lives to missions as well. Missionaries have the authority to preach the Christian faith, and provide humanitarian aid. Christian doctrines permit the provision of aid without requiring religious conversion.

Contents

Foundation

The home was founded after an appeal by Lieutenant Colonel R. M. Hughes, previously of the East India Company, and Joseph Salter of the London City Mission. [2] The first donation was of £500 from Maharaja Duleep Singh, [3] followed by a regular revenue from the East India Company and a lesser contribution from the Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (later P&O). [2] The architect was C.L. Bracebridge. [4] On 31 May 1856, the foundation stone was laid by Prince Albert and the Home finally opened in 1857. [3] It was one of a number of homes founded in the area to deal with the problem of unemployed or destitute sailors. [5]

East India Company 16th through 19th-century British trading company

The East India Company (EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) or the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company, Company Bahadur, or simply The Company, was an English and later British joint-stock company. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with Mughal India and the East Indies, and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control over large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia, and colonised Hong Kong after a war with Qing China.

Joseph Salter was a Christian missionary in London who worked with migrants to the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century. He was particularly known for his work with lascars and later for his work with ayahs. He taught himself several Indian languages and wrote two books describing his work.

P&O (company) British shipping and logistics company

P&O was a British shipping and logistics company dating from the early 19th century. Formerly a public company, it was sold to DP World in March 2006 for £3.9 billion. DP World currently operate three P&O branded businesses, P&O Ferries, P&O Maritime and P&O Heritage. P&O Cruises was spun off from P&O in 2000, and is now owned and operated by Carnival Corporation & plc. The former shipping business, P&O Nedlloyd, was bought by and is now part of Maersk Line.

Activities

The home served as a repatriation centre where sailors could be sought and re-employed for return journeys to the East. It also provided temporary board and lodgings and functioned as a missionary centre. [3] It was described by Count E. Armfelt in Living London (c. 1902) as having "reading and smoking and bagatelle rooms, bedrooms, baggage rooms, kitchens, and dining rooms, where every individual can cook and eat his meal with the ritual which his conscience commands him, undefiled by even the shadow of an infidel." [6] More than 5,000 individuals were accommodated between 1857 and 1877. [3]

Missionary member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to promote their faith or perform ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin missionem, meaning "act of sending" or mittere, meaning "to send". The word was used in light of its biblical usage; in the Latin translation of the Bible, Christ uses the word when sending the disciples to preach The gospel in his name. The term is most commonly used for Christian missions, but can be used for any creed or ideology.

Bagatelle billiards-derived indoor table game

Bagatelle is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls past wooden pins into holes that are guarded by wooden pegs; penalties are incurred if the pegs are knocked over. It probably developed from the table made with raised sides for trou madame, which was also played with ivory balls and continued to be popular into the later nineteenth century, after which it developed into bar billiards, with influences from the French/Belgian game billard russe. A bagatelle variant using fixed metal pins, billard japonais, eventually led to the development of pachinko and pinball. Bagatelle is also laterally related to miniature golf.

Joseph Salter was one missionary from the Home that gave graphic accounts of the lives of the lascars who frequently took refuge here. [7]

A Chinese community grew around the Home and the 1881 census recorded that of the 22 people who lived there, eleven were born in China, six in India or Sri Lanka, two in Arabia, two in Singapore and one in the Kru Coast of Africa. [8] In 1886 the Home informed the India Office that they were evicting five Punjabi performers and a bear who could not pay their bills. [9] In 1899, when Major General Chamier was honorary secretary of the Home, a group of eighteen Indian and Sri Lankan performers from a travelling show were left destitute at Marylebone station and took refuge at the Home after being dismissed by their manager. [10]

Kru people ethnic group

The Kru or Kroo are a West African ethnic group who are indigenous to eastern Liberia and migrated and settled along various points of the West African coast, notably Freetown, Sierra Leone, but also the Ivorian and Nigerian coasts. The Kru were famous for their skills in navigating and sailing the Atlantic. Their maritime expertise evolved along the west coast of Africa as they made livings as fishermen and traders. Knowing the in-shore waters of the western coast of Africa, and having nautical experience, they were employed as sailors, navigators and interpreters aboard slave ships, as well as American and British warships used against the slave trade.

India Office

The India Office was a British government department established in London in 1858 to oversee the administration, through a Viceroy and other officials, of the Provinces of British India. These territories comprised most of the modern-day nations of Bangladesh, Burma, India, and Pakistan, as well as Aden and other territories around the Indian Ocean. The department was headed by the Secretary of State for India, a member of the British cabinet, who was formally advised by the Council of India.

The Punjabis or Punjabi people are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group associated with the Punjab region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, presently divided between Punjab, India and Punjab, Pakistan. They speak Punjabi, a language from the Indo-Aryan language family. The name Punjab literally means the land of five waters in Persian: panj ("five") āb ("waters"). The name of the region was introduced by the Turko-Persian conquerors of the Indian subcontinent. The historical Punjab region is often referred to as the breadbasket in both India and Pakistan.

Closure

A lack of funds and the reduced numbers of sailors in need of help led to the closure of the Home in 1937. [3] The site is now occupied by flats known as West India House, opened in 1946 by Clement Attlee. [12]

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References

  1. ↑ Illustrated London News, 14 June 1856.
  2. 1 2 The Strangers' Home. Port Cities London. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders. Making Britain, The Open University. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  4. ↑ "The Strangers' Home." Illustrated London News, 14 June 1856, No. 806, p. 670.
  5. ↑ A New Home In Canning Town. Newham New Deal Partnership, 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  6. ↑ "Oriental London" by Count E. Armfelt in George R. Sims (ed.) (c. 1902) Living London Vol. I. London: Cassell. pp. 81–86 (p. 83).
  7. ↑ Anand, Anita. (2015). Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 163–165. ISBN   978-1-4088-3546-3.
  8. ↑ "Chinese Communities". Proceedings of the Old Bailey. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  9. ↑ Robinson, Amy Elizabeth. (2005). Tinker, Tailor, Vagrant, Sailor: Colonial Mobility and the British Imperial State, 1880–1914 (PhD Thesis). Stanford University. p. 71.
  10. ↑ How an Indian performance troupe found itself destitute in Victorian London. Mark Hobbs, British Library, 5 February 2015. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  11. ↑ Sims, George R. (Ed.) (c. 1902) Living London Vol. I. London: Cassell. p. 85.
  12. ↑ "Tower Hill to Museum in Docklands" (PDF). www.towerhamlets.gov.uk. Retrieved 30 April 2018.

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