Diagram of a slave ship
Shopping for fabric
Wordsworth, 'Daffodils'
Textiles from India
Beethoven's sketches
Exhibition of a rhino and zebra
Deciphering the Rosetta Stone
Battle of Waterloo letter
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Peterloo Massacre
Cartoon of a street accident
Shampooing Surgeon
Description of London
Execution of a 12 year old boy
Diary entry on 'The Pillory'
Invention of photography
1832 Reform Act
Tolpuddle Martyrs
Early Chartist meeting notes
Dickens, Oliver Twist
The People's Charter
Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby
Poster for Living Mermaid
The Railways
First postage stamp
Coal mining
Popular entertainments
Engels: factory conditions
Freak show: What is it?
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
The Communist Manifesto
Chartist William Cuffay
The Great Exhibition
Sketch for the Crystal Palace
Woman's magazine
Poverty and the workhouse
London Zoo
Cookery for the poor
Human Exhibition
Mary Seacole
Ship building
Britain's Indian empire
Nightingale, Notes on Nursing
Victorian fashion
Florence Nightingale letter
Coal mining
Mrs Beeton - Lady's maid
Mrs Beeton
Mrs Beeton's Turkey
A Hulk (prison ship)
Underground trains
Alice in Wonderland
Letter from Charles Darwin
City slums
Opening of the Suez Canal
Music Hall
Street sellers
Freakshow posters
Invention of the telephone
Illusionists and conjurers
The textile industry
Victorian farming
Magic show
Circus poster
Victoria's Indian servant
Match Girls Strike
Jack the Ripper murders
Daily shopping
An Asian MP in Parliament
Gladstone: Irish Home Rule
Oscar Wilde on trial
Nightingale Nurse diary
Factory accidents
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
In 1869, the Suez Canal was opened, greatly reducing the distance between Britain and India by some 4,500 miles as ships no longer needed to travel round southern Africa.
The Suez Canal together with the reliable service of steam-powered liners led to an increase in merchant and passenger shipping. As a result, maritime companies employed Indian lascar sailors in far greater numbers, as they were considered able to withstand the heat of engine rooms. Employed on ‘Asiatic’ contracts, they were paid much less than their British counterparts, thus enabling ship owners to increase profits.
Lascars were exploited as cheap labour to service Britain’s globalised trade networks. In the absence of trade unions for lascars, their campaign for better wages and working conditions became a long drawn-out struggle. Some jumped ship in Britain, setting up cafes and hotels in port cities or working as pedlars.
Shelfmark: P.P.7611