Portcities London

reflecting our cultures

Maritime London Partnership

On this site:

Chinese in the Port of London

The Oriental Quarters

Chinese gamblers in an opium den. © NMM

The wedding procession of Canton Kitty and Achi. © NMM

Chinese Emma ran a Chinese gambling house, where card games were held downstairs and the upstairs served as an opium room. About 20 Chinese men lived here. The proprietor was a Chinese man called Apoo from Amoy.  

The China tea trade

Tea being unloaded at the London Docks from the Louden Castle. © NMM

Chinese seamen stranded in London were allowed to work in the docks and many were involved in unloading China tea.

The 'Cutty Sark' chinamen

Deck of the Cutty Sark (under Captain Woodget). © NMM

James was brought to London and grew up at Poplar. He became a seaman and cook on the Cutty Sark between 1885 and 1895. Another Chinese man who served on the Cutty Sark was Ah Sing Lee, a steward from Singapore. He was taken on at Shanghai in 1879 and discharged at London in 1880.

Chinese sailors in the Royal Navy

The SS Almora. © NMM

The British India Steam Navigation Company (BISNC), with ships such as the SS Almora and the Blue Funnel Line brought more Chinese seamen to London, especially after 1890. 

Amahs and wives

Sing Seng. © NMM

Most Chinese seamen lived to the north of the river. By 1880 the Chinese community was based in Limehouse and consisted mainly of Shanghai and Cantonese seamen who catered for the Chinese and Indians that arrived at the docks. In 1881, there were several Chinese seamen living in the boarding house of Mr M. Lamar at 14, Limehouse Court.

Two Chinese London communities

By 1890 there were two distinct communities:

• The Chinese from Shanghai were settled around Pennyfields, Amoy Place and Ming Street  (presently the area between Westferry and Poplar DLR stations).
• The Chinese from Canton and Southern China were settled around Gill Street and Limehouse Causeway.

The historian Sir Walter Besant put the Limehouse Chinese community at less then 100 people in 1891. 
 

The Chinese Dragon sculpture marking the Chinatown at Limehouse. © NMM

• 21 from Canton
• 12 from Soochow
• at least three from Hainan Island
• one from Hong Kong.

By 1911 the area of Limehouse and Pennyfields was known as Chinatown. At Pennyfields there was a Christian Mission for the Chinese and a Confucian temple. At Limehouse Causeway there was the famous Ah Tack’s lodging house.     

Prejudice and hostility

There was much prejudice against the East End Chinese community, with much of it initiated by the writings of Thomas Burke and Arthur Henry Ward. Both of these men wrote about the Chinese community.

Burke and Ward exaggerated the Chinese community's true size and made much mention of gambling, opium dens and 'unholy things' in the shadows.

Though there were some individuals involved in gambling and opium smoking, for the majority of Chinese people life was hard work in the docks. It was a struggle to find passage for the return voyage to the Far East.

The novelist Arnold Bennett, who visited the Limehouse Chinatown in April 1925, correctly remarked:

'On the whole a rather flat night. Still we saw the facts. We saw no vice whatever. Inspector [of Police] gave the Chinese an exceedingly good character.' 

20th-century Limehouse

Mandarin Street, Westferry, London. © NMM

At that time the community was still based around Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields. The area was marked with lodgings for seamen and restaurants.

These streets were heavily bombed during the Blitz. Now only their names remain to evoke the past community. There are names such as Canton Street, Mandarin Street, Pekin Street, Ming Street and Nankin Street.
 

• The East India Company