From “Lascar” to Forest Gate resident

Local historian and Newham resident Asif Shakoor describes his grandfather’s journey from being an Indian seafarer a century ago to a Forest Gate resident and his family’s subsequent history in the area.

I was born, raised, and educated in Newham, studying at the University of East London, but until recently, I had no idea that my family’s connections with the borough go back more than 100 years.

During a visit to Pakistan, I was given a wooden box containing fading documents, leading me to research the seafaring life of my grandfather, Mahomed Gama.

Asif’s grandfather Mahomed Gama

He was born in 1895 in Mirpur, in the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in British-ruled India. I discovered he joined the British Mercantile Marine at a young age and made multiple voyages during the First World War.

On the Royal Albert Dockside, there is a newly created road named ‘Lascars Avenue.’ Most passers-by will not know that ‘Lascar’ was the name given to Indian sailors employed as ship’s crews. My grandfather would have been employed on a ‘lascar’ contract.

Mahomed Gama was one of the 51,000 Lascars, predominantly Muslims from present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, constituting 17.5% of all seafarers on British ships in 1914. They were paid a mere fifth of what their white British counterparts earned (£1. 1s vs. £5. 10s). The 1894 Merchant Shipping Act had bound Indian seafarers to return to India on ships as part of the crew or face criminal prosecution.

However, some chose to jump ship due to the lure of better jobs or the harsh onboard conditions. By the First World War, small Lascar communities had sprung up in dock areas of London, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Liverpool.

The antique documents included a certificate showing that Mohamed Gama had served on several journeys on the SS Khiva. Researching the crew list at the UK National Archives, I discovered that the vessel had terminated at the Victoria Docks on 8th December 1917.

 

SS Khiva

The vessel stayed there for a month before sailing for New York. The crew lists held in the USA named my grandfather as a fireman on board this ship. On the same list, I found the Indian revolutionary and seafarer Amir Haider Khan, who recalled in his memoir that: ‘the vessel had to be kept in London until the end of the year for cannon flagging and some other alterations to prepare for her new role of carrying supplies and men from the USA to the United Kingdom and France'.

During its service, SS Khiva transported thousands of troops’ military supplies from New York to the frontline in France between April 1917 and November 1918 – the last arriving on what was to be Armistice Day. The ship returned to normal service in January 1919. My grandfather was awarded the British War Medal and the Mercantile Marine War Medal in recognition of his service on the SS Khiva.

 

World War 1 Service medal (left) and Mercantile Marine war medal (right) awarded to Mahomed Gama

I also discovered documents that showed my grandfather had docked at unspecified London docks on the SS Medina in December 1915 and on the SS Mooltan in December 1913, when he was only 18.

Knowing that my grandfather had stayed in present-day Newham, possibly as early as 1913, led me to wonder where and how he would have lived. The historian Rozina Visram has written about various facilities set up for Indian seafarers near the docks.

One was set up by the Seamen’s Hospital Society and known as the Royal Albert Hospital. It was located near both Victoria and Albert Docks from 1889 until 1937 when it moved to Alnwick Road. Other local facilities included the Coloured Men’s Institute, founded by a South Asian Methodist minister, Kamal Chunchie, at 13-15 Tidal Basin Road.

 

Seamen's Hospital c1900

After leaving the Merchant Navy, my grandfather settled in the United Kingdom in 1952 and was employed by BIRMID Midland Motor Cylinder Company, and the tube manufacturing firm, Accles, and Pollock in Oldbury, where he was employed as a labourer, between 1959 and 1965. It was from Accles and Pollock that he bought my father his first push bike.

In 1954, he brought my father to live with him in the UK, and in 1965, he stayed a month with my father and uncle, who were by then settled in Newham. They stayed at 73 Osborne Road, Forest Gate, in January 1965. My father moved there after he absconded from Cape Hill school in Smethwick.

My father told me that his first employment was as a shoe polisher based on Woodgrange Road at the site of the former Percy Ingle bakers. He then completed a motor mechanic apprenticeship with Jessups of Romford. He later became the first South Asian class one HGV driver after passing an HGV driving test on 7 July 1976 at Purfleet Test Centre in Essex.

My grandfather died soon after, on 16th August 1965, whilst in Pakistan. I never knew my grandfather, yet I have this sense of connection that cannot be expressed in mere words. I look at the places connected with him and wish I could have witnessed those historical events.