How Lascar seamen were viewed
Lascars
were probably the largest group of South Asian workers in
Victorian Britain. The majority were Muslim, although there were
significant Hindu (Suratis) and Catholic Goan minorities.
They came principally from East Bengal (Bangladesh), particularly
Chittagong and Sylhet, and were recruited from the port of Calcutta.
The port of Bombay recruited seamen from along the Malabar Coast of
Western India. The introduction of railways to India enabled
recruitment from inland areas such as the Punjab.
The Annual Register 1805
April
11th. Last Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, and this day, the Lascars of the
Mahommedan persuasion, at the east end of the town, had a grand
religious festival. The first day they went in slow procession along
the New-road, St. George's in the east, Cannon-street,
Ratcliff-highway, Shadwell, and other streets, wilh drums and
tambourines. Part of them were selected, performing pantomimical
dances, with drawn swords, cutting the air in various directions; then
followed four blacks, in long white robes, holding emblematical figures
in their hands. Another held a vase, in which was a fire; and a man in
a white vestment, treading backwards, threw incense into it; another,
with a handkerchief, fanning their faces; when, at every turn of the
streets, a group of the same people lifted up their hands and heads to
the canopy of Heaven, hymning some passages out of the Koran. They
conducted themselves with great propriety, although a multitude of
people followed them. On Monday and Tuesday they made a visit in solemn
procession the same way; and on Thursday another succeeded, which
closed their religious revelry, back to their place in
Ratcliff-highway. We understand this was a kind of jubilee in honour of
the commencement of their new year, and of the translation of Mahommed
into Paradise, and imploring him to give peace to the suffering world,
and them a safe return to their own country.
The History and Antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark and other
parts adjacent
INTERMENT OF A LASCAR. — The following ceremony, observed in
performing the burial rites of this description of foreigners, took
place in the month of January, 1823, in Britton's burying-ground,
Church Lane, Whitechapel. The remains of the deceased (a man) were
wrapped up in a sheet, and deposited in a plain wooden shell, painted
black, and carried with the lid loose upon it in a blanket, by four of
his countrymen, and followed close in the rear, by several others, from
the Lascar Barracks, Cannon Street Road, St. George's in the East*, to
the place of interment, where it arrived about eleven o'clock. On
approaching the grave, which was about five feet deep, they laid down
the coffin, and having formed themselves into a circle round it, took
off the lid, uncovered the corpse, and and having sprinkled several
handsful of fine earth over its face, replaced the lid, and fastened it
down by three common nails only. They then took away the blanket, and
lowered the coffin down into the grave, which they instantly commenced
filling with clay, some by means of shovels, and others with their
hands, for they would not allow a gravedigger to take any part in the
transaction. As they filled the grave they sprinkled water over it,
from an earthen vessel, and burying a shovel at the feet of the corpse,
poured down upon it the remains of the water. A handkerchief was then
spread at the head of the grave, and on that was placed a paper
containing about half a pound of moist sugar, and several apples cut
into square pieces. Over this they all stood muttering some words, as
if by way of prayer, and thus the ceremony ended, without the
attendance of a priest of any persuasion whatever. They sat up in
rotation, two at a time, provided with lights and implements of
defence, for several nights.
* The East India company paid contractors 10s. per week per
head to house and feed lascars, and from 1804 this was held exclusively
by Abraham Gole snr. and Abraham Gole junior, who built a barracks
locally - see more about this family here. An 1814-15 Parliamentary
Committee on Lascars and other Asiatic Seamen (for which Wilberforce,
among others, had campaigned) paid a surprise visit, and reported
severe overcrowding.
The
Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction vol XXXII (1838)
LASCAR BURIAL
Considerable
crowds were on Wednesday, October 3, 1838, attracted to the
burial-ground adjoining Trinity Church, in Cannon-street-road East, to
witness the singular ceremony of the interment of a Lascar who had
recently arrived in this country by one of the East India ships, and
who died shortly after the vessel had put into the St. Katharine's
Dock. The body of the deceased, which was merely rolled up in a piece
of thin calico, was placed on a rude and temporary bier formed of a few
pieces of cane-wood, and decorated with several turbans unfolded, and
carried on the shoulders of four of his countrymen, being followed by
about twelve or fourteen Lascars. The singularity of such a procession,
as well as the manner of those who formed it, which appeared any thing
but serious or solemn (as most of them smoked their paper cigars, and
indulged in what, to an English spectator, appeared great levity),
caused a considerable mob of persons to follow it from the vicinity of
the docks, so that by the time it had reached Cannon-street several
thousands had assembled, and it required the interference of the police
to clear a passage to enable the bearers of the body and their
followers to enter the church [sc.
churchyard].
On getting in, however, some considerable delay took place before the
interment of the body could be effected, no preparation whatever having
been previously made for its reception. It was some time before the
Lascars could be prevailed upon to pay the 7s., which was demanded of
them by the sextoness for the grave. They at length, however, paid the
money, and the grave was in a short time prepared. The body was then
handed to two of the Lascars, who had descended into the grave, and who
placed it at full length on the back, while the remainder squatted
themselves round the edge of the grave, which was about seven feet
deep; and, with their hands uplifted, commenced chanting, in somewhat
discordant tones, a prayer or hymn; the two who were in the grave
continued meanwhile to roll the corpse over and over. The eyes and the
month of the deceased were open, and the rolling about of the body
presented an appalling appearance. Various other ceremonies were
subsequently gone through, and on a given signal the men in the grave,
with astonishing agility, got out of it, and all commenced with the
greatest rapidity to throw in the earth with their hands. The quickness
with which they performed this was such, that the grave was filled in a
few minutes; and having then used a shovel to settle and harden the
earth on the top, the whole of the party left the ground smoking their
cigars.
[left] Lascars at prayer on board the Bengalen, c1910
See further Michael Fisher Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain 1600-1857 (Orient Longman 2004).
For more about Lascars in the 20th century, see this site.
The 1930s onwards saw a steady and increasing trickle of convictions of
lascars for possession of 'Indian hemp' (cannabis) in local
magistrates' courts; at first sentences varied quite widely. For
example, at the Thames court in 1931 Norden Hassan was given three
months with hard labour for possessing a quantity of 'ganja', while in
1933 Abdulramon Haji, a seaman,
was merely fined £2 for possession of 8 oz; in 1934 Abdul Monaff had 42
grains (a relatively small amount) hidden under the floorboards of his
room in Limehouse and received six months with hard labour. The
following year Archibald Bellamy (a West Indian) received the same
sentence - it was alleged that he had been dealing in the drug. He said
it was 'native tobacco' given him by a seaman, which he mixed with
ordinary tobacco when he was hard up. A police officer told the
magistrate, F.O. Langley, that it was in fact very expensive, and had a
bad effect on the brain.
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How Lascar seamen were viewed
[left] Lascars at prayer on board the Bengalen, c1910