Limehouse: London's First Chinatown

'He had thought that the Lascars were a tribe or nation, like the Cherokee or Sioux:
He discovered now that they came from places that were far apart, and had nothing in common, except the Indian Ocean; among them were Chinese and East Africans, Arabs and Malays, Bengalis and Goans, Tamils and Arakanese.'

-Excerpt from 'Sea of Poppies' (2008) by Amitav Ghosh

For generations, the sea has provided the livelihood of my family: since time immemorial my ancestors had intermarried with the Tanka people, the ‘boat people’ or ‘sea gypsies’ who have traditionally lived on junks and fished along the southern China. In my grandfather’s time, they had been for three generations marine surveyors and witnessed first-hand how Hong Kong turned into one of the busiest trading ports of the world. My uncle who later joined the navy would become the first of my family to settle in Britain.

​And it was the connection to the sea that brought the first Chinese to Britain - who were seamen serving onboard European ships. Since I have always have an interest in knowing more about my predecessors - the first Chinese migrants in Britain, I took a walk around the site of London’s first Chinatown.

A 1930s photo of Chinese shops at London's first Chinatown in East London. (Getty Images)

It was the East India Company (EIC) that brought the first Chinese to Britain. In the early days the lascars - Asian seamen who served on European ships - were promised bounty money and maintenance in British ports while they waited for a return passage back to Asia.

​In practice, however, the sailors were promptly abandoned once the ships reached London and many stranded Chinese would take up jobs unloading tea at the docks. Although the Merchant Shipping Act of 1823 made the Company legally responsible for their upkeep whilst in England, this was often ignored and it was up to charities such as the Church Missionary Society which had created hostels to provide for destitute Asian seamen.

The former 'Passmore Edwards Sailors Palace' in Limehouse, the HQ of the British and Foreign Sailors Society which provided lodgings to British and foreign sailors around the area. The building was converted into flats in 1987, but it still houses the Chinese Association of Tower Hamlets.

Seamen at a Salvation Army sailor's hostel in 1888. Most probably at Limehouse (Taken at the Museum of London Docklands)

But both Company lodgings and charity hostels were usually of dire conditions: the journalist Henry Mayhew described how the lodging houses of this period would have one foot wide bunk beds with simple straw mattresses, and there were no toilets or any washing facilities.

The appalling living conditions forced the Chinese sailors to seek lodgings elsewhere around the docks – and it was them who founded the first Chinatown in London – at a little remembered area called Limehouse at the East End.

Below the footbridge was the site of the earliest lodging house for of the Chinatown in the area - at No.11, 12 and 14 of Limehouse Causeway. It also consisted of two shops.

In the early years, these Chinese seamen were predominantly Cantonese: China’s ‘Canton System’ (一口通商) (1757-1842) had meant that foreigners were only permitted to trade in the port of Canton (today’s city of Guangzhou) and thus seamen were mostly local southern recruits. The first Chinese to be naturalised as a British citizen was likely to be a Cantonese seamen that worked for the East Indian Company. He was only known by his Christian name ‘John Anthony’.

​After the two Opium Wars, Hong Kong became a British colony and local Cantonese continued to be recruited onto British ships. As Britain forced China to open new treaty ports for trade, the Shanghainese became the latest addition to the Chinese diaspora in London by the mid 19th century.

Map of Limehouse in London. (Annotated by myself)

By the 1890s, Limehouse's Chinatown had mainly split into two groups: the Cantonese lived on Gill Street and Limehouse Causeway, whereas the smaller Shanghainese community lived at neighbouring Pennyfields, Amoy Place and Ming Street. In the 1920s rival gangs from both sides would still fight to seize control of the gambling houses in the area.

In the early years, the default choice of Chinese gambling game in Limehouse was Fan-Tan. It was mostly replaced by Puka-Pu card by the 1920s. (Photo shows Fan-Tan at a Chinese gambling house in Canton in 1800s, taken by Lai Afong)

An 1881 census showed the Chinese community in London numbered about 100 in total – with at least half of them being seamen. Some of them had married English wives, which was still seen as generally positive and acceptable by the Edwardian society then, but this was about to change.

Limehouse Causeway, the Cantonese area within the former Limehouse Chinatown. Almost no original buildings from that period had survived to this day, and this is one of the few.

Yau Lee Chinese hand laundry shop in Limehouse, early 20th century.

As Chinese seamen were often paid less and given less food and drinks rations, there were violent attempts by local labourers who saw them as foreigners who stole jobs rather than the victims of exploitation. Many were discriminated against by dock hirers and in 1916, the Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union protested in Limehouse against the increasing use of Chinese on British ships.

With the Chinese were often denied opportunities elsewhere, they had later diversified their business by offering cheap hand laundry services which were often met with hostility and physical violence. The first Chinese laundrette opened in Poplar in 1901 was such an example. But the worst was to come  during the Transport Workers’ Strike of July 1911: Every single one of Cardiff's thirty three Chinese laundrettes were deliberately ransacked by rioters. 

A lack of understanding of a distinctively different Asian culture, coupled with the reclusiveness of the Chinese community would soon earn Limehouse the unfair reputation of an Oriental hub of criminality and vice. Writers and novelists in this period shamelessly exploited the cliché image of a mysterious Oriental slum, and opium dens became a regular feature in numerous literature to illustrate extreme decadence.

An illustration of an opium den in Limehouse. (From The Illustrated London News published in Dec 1890)

Both Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray (‘The Portrait of Dorian Gray, 1890) and Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, 1891) would visit an opium den in their novels; even Charles Dickens had used an opium den in Limehouse as the opening scene of his ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ (1870). Few ever questioned why Britain fought two wars to ensure the opium trade to continue in China, or how it got millions of Chinese hooked on the substance.

'Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, [...] Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man.'

—Excerpt from 'The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu' (1913) by Thomas Burke

But it was Sax Rohmer’s ‘The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu’ (1913) and Thomas Burke’s ‘Limehouse Nights’ (1916) that really captured the public’s imagination about the Chinese and Limehouse's Chinatown. The fictional villain in Rohmer’s novel was Fu Manchu, a Chinese but also supposedly the most evil man in the world, ‘the yellow peril incarnate in one man’ who was hell bent on utter destruction of the civilised west. The popularity of the two series led to even more prejudice against the Chinese in Britain, and Limehouse soon became the synonym of moral decadence and other social-ills. 

To the annoyance of Limehouse residents, Burke and even travel agencies like Thomas Cook would organise group tours for thrill-seeking readers wanting to witness some of the fascinated horror that was so vividly described in the novels. But to their disappointment and as the Rector of Limehouse pointed out at the time, ‘those who look for the Limehouse of Mr. Thomas Burke simply will not find it.’

Movies based on the fictional character Fu Manchu continued well into the 60s, some of which built on rumours at the time that young white women had been kidnapped in Chinese laundries and taken aboard ships bound for the Far East to be sold as sex slaves.

Although China entered WWI on Britain’s side, anti-Chinese sentiment in Britain had failed to subside. Rumours circulated that whilst courageous Englishmen had gone to fight for King and Country, the Chinese were busy taking their jobs and seducing their women. An article in The Star, a London evening newspaper summed up the prejudice at the time: ‘As Englishmen joined the Army, Chinese came in to replace them in many instances in the factories […] then he and his compatriots overflowed from his original quarter, forming alliances in some cases with white women.’ State legislations made during the war, such as the Alien Act of 1914 & 1919 continued to work against foreigners in Britain who were often seen as ‘the enemy within’.

Chinese workers on the way to the Western Front in France. The first 1,083 Chinese left Shandong on a British ship bound for Le Havre in 1917. (Photo from the Kautz Family YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota)

With the Japanese staunchly opposed to Chinese fighting in the war, almost 100,000 Chinese were shipped from Shandong province in China to form the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) under the British. The Chinese became the largest non-European labour contingent on the Western Front as they built trenches, repaired tanks, assembled shells and retrieved dead bodies on the frontlines.

The Chinese Labour Corps in an armament factory. (Photo from Chatham House's Flickr)

A proposed memorial dedicated to the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) in London by the CLC Memorial Campaign Group. There is no tribute to the CLC amongst Britain's 40,000 war memorials across Britain today. (Image from the CLC Memorial Campaign Facebook page)

​Thousands, with some sources suggesting ten thousand died during the course of the war, many fell victim to enemy shelling and poor treatment. Some stayed to clear live shells left on the battlefields and settled down in France after the war, but none settled in Britain as they were all repatriated back to China. 

As war looms over Britain again in the 1930s, further production of the Fu Manchu movie series was suspended as Britain finds itself allied with China again. Even the formerly sex-crazed character, Mr. Wu, in the comedian George Formby’s huge hit ‘Chinese Laundry Blues’ (1932) got an upgrade during the Blitz: he was to become an air raid warden his new song. When a BBC staff came to the Chinese embassy to ask if the new song was offensive, a senior diplomat gave him a rather cold reply, ‘No [it is not offensive]. But it’s not very funny, is it?’

British sailors were called upon to man naval ships in WW2, whilst Chinese seamen - as they had done since the time of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) -  were recruited to staff British ships and to fill the vacancies. Almost 20,000 Chinese sailors in Liverpool signed up to staff the oil tankers on the dangerous North Atlantic supply route in 1939. Many would go on strike to seek for equal pay as local seamen in 1942 – but instead they were expelled and offered a one way ticket back to China.

A 2006 memorial in Liverpool dedicated to Chinese seamen who served Britain in both world wars. Liverpool's martime connection led to it becoming the site of the earliest Chinatown in Europe.

Forced repatriation continued until the late 1940s as the British government worked with shipping companies and expelled the rest of the Chinese seamen. Since almost 300 of them had married locally and had British families, that had made their repatriation entirely illegal. Many of the mixed children would never see their father again, who now found themselves trapped in a war-torn China that was about to enter into yet another bloody civil war.

But Limehouse Chinatown had already entered into decline during the interwar years. Dwindling maritime trade, with shipping docks moving further away to the shores and away from Limehouse all contributed to the decline. Limehouse was heavily bombed during the Blitz, and many more moved away.

Ruined flats in Limehouse in 1945. (Sourced & Licensed from © IWM Imperial War Museum)

Surprisingly, it was also WW2 that brought prosperity to the Chinese business scene: British soldiers who had served in the Far East had developed a taste for Chinese food and they were now demanding for similar comfort back home. By the 1980s, 90% of the employed Chinese in Britain were still working in the thriving catering industry.

​But there was to return no-return to the once flourishing Chinese community in Limehouse. With London County Council’s post-war slum clearance and redevelopment policy, the Chinese moved en masse to Soho in the 1950s, establishing the current Chinatown in west London. There are very few reminders of the Chinese past in Limehouse today - the Chinese-related street signs like 'Canton Street' or 'Amoy Place' are all that survives.

A 1997 metallic dragon sculpture near the old Mandarin Street, one of the very few reminders of Limehouse's Chinese past.

The  demography of modern Britain’s Chinese diaspora has continued to rapidly evolve today. From seamen, to laundry work and later catering - Chinese migrants have increasingly diversified their roles and today it has become much easier to see Chinese people in all walks of life. Perhaps the most remarkable change is of their region of origin back in China.

When I was younger, most of the Chinese I came across would have been Hakka or Cantonese-speaking people from Britain’s last colony - like myself. With Hong Kong being returned to China in 1997, and as China relaxed its restriction on emigration since the 80s, many I met today are mostly Mandarin-speaking Chinese from the mainland of China. There is a strange sense of nostalgia for many of us who were used to meeting fellow Chinese who shared the same language and came from the same region.

But for a people who believes in the constant cycle and renewal - just like the philosophy behind the yin-yang - perhaps this change is meant to be so: When Ng Kwee Choo the scholar and author interviewed several Chinese for his book ‘The Chinese in London’ (1968) In the early 60s, he noted that a few of them would look back at the once small and close-knit community in Limehouse with nostalgia and resented the new generations of post-war Chinese immigrants who were then mostly from Hong Kong. Today, some Chinese migrant from Hong Kong share a similar view about their new counterparts from Mainland China.

'China Tea' repackaged and sold by Williams Brothers at the end of the 19th century. Note the western imitation of Chinese characters on the side. (Taken at the Museum of London Docklands)

I walked along the East India Dock Road on my way back. The East India Company (EIC) did not only bring the first Chinese to Britain in the 1780s, they also brought much-prized Chinese tea and porcelain to London on this road too. And perhaps not so different from today, Britain's wealth once flowed east to China from here, and in the opposite direction exotic Chinese goods went along this road to the luxury shops in central London.

But how did a maritime trading company ended up ruling a country, seizing Hong Kong with its own warships, and by 1857 even committing a genocide in India? I had come to London to look at the story and the places related to the EIC – one of the world's first joint-stock companies, and the most powerful corporation the world has ever seen.

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Continue to my next article (yet to publish):
'The Honourable Company: The World's Most Powerful Corporation.'