Liverpool Communities - South Asian

 

Three Lascars of the ‘Viceroy of India’ (1929)

The Indian presence in Liverpool dates back to the 1860s, although these people only tended to be sailors and tradesmen. Lascars, or Indian sailors, first began to be employed in small numbers from the seventeenth century by the East India Company, which was set up by private merchants in 1600 by Royal Charter, to establish trade links with India and was largely responsible for the British conquest of India. Liverpool’s Asia trade involved the export of cotton goods and import of tea, East Indian sugar and Asian produce, underlining its importance as a world-class port. These Indian sailors were engaged to fill the manpower gap on ships returning from India, as some British sailors deserted their ships in India and others died. The East India Company's monopoly of trade with India was abolished in 1813 following a campaign in which Liverpool merchants played a leading part and the company was then dissolved in 1858. A small population of Lascars started to grow up in London, Liverpool, Cardiff and Glasgow forming the earliest Indian working-class communities in Britain. These port cities became multi-racial settlements with sailors from diverse countries mixing relatively freely with the local population, some marrying and starting families with English and Irish working-class women. For the Lascars life was initially very hard as they were single men far from home, unemployed for long periods and in extreme poverty. Most lived in lodging houses which at first were run by the East India Company but later, after the British government took over control of India in 1858, many were run by people from their own communities. However it was not uncommon to see some distressed Lascars wandering in the streets and the term, 'the black poor', was to be first applied to describe destitute Indian sailors waiting to go home. However, with time and more than a little effort, inhabiting the same community spaces enabled them to merge at last with their local working-class populations. Lascar labour was indispensable to British industry and without their labour the British Merchant Fleet could not have functioned. They were responsible for transporting raw materials and manufactured goods, as well as passengers, across the world within Britain's imperial economy, and Britain's wealth and prosperity could be said to have been built on the backs of these poorly paid sailors.

Brougham Terrace

Historically, the first place Indians and fellow South Asians looked for work were the docks of Liverpool as Lascars would earn their living by various means, but preferably as sailors if they could. It was a hard living with little pay and the fact that they spoke little to no English made it even harder. They were proud people and working in oppressive conditions for people who were considered 'higher up', led to many ending their jobs at the docks and seeking work elsewhere. In 1889 William Henry Quilliam, a Liverpool solicitor and Muslim convert, bought No.8 Brougham Terrace for the Liverpool Muslim Institute. The Institute had been established by William Quilliam at the Temperance Hall on Mount Vernon Street, Liverpool in 1887. After building an extension at the rear of the building, No.8 became the first fully-functioning mosque in England. He later bought the rest of the houses at the north-eastern end of the terrace and opened a boarding school for boys, a day school for girls and an orphanage known as Medina House at No.12 Brougham Terrace. He also established the first Islamic publication house in the United Kingdom, in the basement of No.8. There he published 'The Crescent', a monthly journal known as 'The Islamic World' that was circulated worldwide and collections of his lectures. 

Some of the first Indians to permanently settle in Liverpool

 

Around 1910 a group of Indian males from the Punjab region of India moved to Liverpool and established the city's first fixed community. Many Indian men made a living as entertainers, fortune tellers or street peddlars, peddling items from house to house, but you first had to get a certificate from the police which wasn't always easy. The hours were long, but being their own boss appealed to many of the South Asians and eventually, large numbers of Indians in Liverpool set up their own businesses. During World War 1 many more Asians came to Liverpool to look for work while numerous more came to the city after India was granted independence in 1947. Wage disputes, unknown on European-crewed ships during the war, were recurrent on those with Lascars. There were no across-the-board wage rises in 1941, but Indians were still going on strike and for much the same objectives. Early in February, 1941, 87 Indians filled the dock and overflowed into the public gallery at Liverpool Police Court to hear, "..yesterday on January 27, while in Liverpool, the master of the ship mustered the men on deck after their refusal to work . . . The master on Thursday again called them together in the saloon and asked them to say 'yes' or 'no' as to whether they were prepared to work. They replied in chorus in Hindustani that they were not willing to work or proceed to sea unless they were given £10 bonus in addition to the bonus already paid them." The men were remanded in custody for a day and then sentenced to one day's imprisonment after the men were said to have seen the error of their ways.

Two other significant waves of Indians to the city occurred when India was split into two separate countries (the other now known as Pakistan), the mass exodus of Indians from Kenya in the 1970s further added to Liverpool's long established South Asian community. The South Asian population of Liverpool is now one of the city's fastest growing ethnic groups; in 2001 some 5,000 South Asians were residing in the city (1.1% of the local population). Over the next eight years, the community more than doubled in size to 13,000 (3% of the local population, which is actually much lower than England's average of 6%). By 2007 estimates put the number of people of Indian origin in Liverpool at 6,700, Pakistanis at 3,200 and Bangladeshis at 1,100. Some 2,000 people belonged to other South Asian groups whilst a further 2,000 individuals were of mixed South Asian and European origin. The majority of Liverpool's Somali community, estimated to number between 4,000 and 9,000, reside in Toxteth where there are numerous Somali-run businesses and community groups. Bengali and Urdu are now amongst the most common foreign languages spoken in Liverpool. 

One of Kenny Dalglish's final signings for Liverpool before resigning as manager was Jimmy Carter from Millwall in 1991 who was the first British Asian to play in the Premier League.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2022/04/liverpool-communiteis-yemen.html