Three floors of irresistible exhibitions and galleries that tell the story of the Liverpool port and waterfront lead to the Maritime Museum archives. When I went there to consult documents on the Liverpool Sailor’s Home, the museum had two stimulating exhibitions on the Cunard ship Lusitania and its White Star Line competitor, Titanic. The archives closed before the rest of the museum, leaving me some time to take in the visual treats that contained a plethora of useful information on the lives of seamen aboard luxury liners.
The walls of the small reading room of the archives were lined with maritime magazines and an excellent collection of books on life at sea. The printed archive catalogues contained detailed descriptions of every folder and enabled me to swiftly cross-reference and request relevant materials without having to look up the online catalogue.
Permanent exhibition at the National Maritime Museum (Photo: Manikarnika Dutta, 2023)
The major attraction of the archives was the accessible reference library that had several scarce but crucial accounts of seamen’s missions. These books were published either privately or by short-lived or niche presses, which meant they were difficult to find in most libraries. A case in point was the two books on the Mersey Mission to Seamen by chaplain Bob Evans, among which The Mersey Mission to Seafarers, 1856-2006 was a rare find. Evans was awarded an MBE in 2008, shortly after the book’s publication, in recognition of his unstinting work for seamen’s welfare since the 1960s.
Source: Liverpool Maritime Museum Archives, 414.EVA
The book is an authoritative history of the Mersey Mission told in a serious and self-congratulatory tone. Evans was proud of what the Mission achieved and overlooked some fundamental problems such as the discrepancy in the annual remunerations of chaplains for different racial categories of seamen. While Rev Tom Patrick joined the chaplaincy with a salary of £300 in 1878 (p. 47), the first Lascar Missionary (Charles Seal) received £52 in 1902 (p. 76). The number of Asiatic seamen under Seal’s paternal care might have been fewer than white seamen in the port, but the stark difference in fees conveys a racialised outlook towards which service counted as more important. The project will further explore the politics of identity for charity matters as it progresses.
In this blog, Freya Malhi, an undergraduate history student who has been interning with the ‘lascar’ strand of the Mariners project, discusses her experience of a first archival trip to the British Library with Lucy Wray.
On the 19th of July I visited the British Library with Lucy Wray to continue her research using the India Office Records. Our focus was on ‘lascars’, a term used to describe non-European sailors, particularly from South Asia, who were employed in large numbers from the 16th to mid-20th century. We were particularly interested in their interactions with the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics in London, a missionary institution which provided boarding and aid in repatriating lascars who had fallen on hard times between 1857 and 1937.
As an undergraduate, my excitement and anticipation were particularly heightened by the fact that, although I have engaged with digitised collections of primary sources many times during my degree, this was my first time doing hands-on archival research. This was a fantastic opportunity for me to experience what a career in academia might look like, given that visiting archives is key to an historian’s work.
Atrium at the British Library, image Freya Malhi, July 2023
What were my expectations?
I had loose expectations prior to this trip of what it might be like. For example, in the preceding week, Lucy gave me some photographs of sources from her previous visit to transcribe and digitise, so from that experience I knew that I would likely be looking at handwritten correspondence and reports surrounding the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics. As the British Library allows you to request files prior to visiting, I even knew what the subjects of the documents I planned to look at would likely be.
However, if anything, there were more elements of research at the British Library that I had questions about. I was curious about how the process of collecting and viewing files would work. How many staff would there be? What were the reading rooms like?
I soon learned that the British Library, as a large-scale public institution, was very organised, with a large body of staff and an online catalogue and request system. Requesting new files was therefore a straightforward and quick process (a 70-minute wait – quite understandable given the 14 kilometres of shelves that hold the India Office Papers, according to the British Library’s website [1]). The reading rooms, too, were pleasant. The warnings that we couldn’t take in food, drinks, bags, or pens made me fear that we’d be entering an environment akin to a surgeon’s sterile field, but it turned out to be more like a quiet and warmly lit library. Lucy had thankfully warned me about the loop of quiet white noise that is played in the background.
I was also curious about the form the files and archival papers would take, and how they were held and preserved. I discovered that the records I viewed mostly consisted of files that were part of much larger bound volumes of correspondence from or to the India Office’s different departments. These volumes were organised by year rather than topic, so I could turn from the pages of correspondence about lascars that I had requested a volume for and immediately see reports about a plea for help dissolving a marriage in India or discussion of a book loan request from the Manchester Vegetarian Society. While these surrounding files were not usually relevant to our research, they gave me a fascinating insight into the other simultaneous concerns of the India Office.
What surprised me?
I was surprised by the ease of access to the British Library’s records – I had always assumed that there would be a level of bureaucracy or a longer process to be able to view archival documents, and I am sure that for many archives that remains the case, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that anyone over 18 can view British Library holdings so long as they apply for a library card and provide ID.
What did I discover?
Much like Lucy’s previous visit, many of the files I looked at comprised part of the ‘Public and Judicial Departmental Papers: Annual Files,’ IOR/L/PJ/6. However, a file of correspondence I found to be particularly revealing was instead part of the ‘Statistics and Commerce Department Papers’, IOR/L/E/6/37-74, the India Office’s Statistics and Commerce Department’s annual files produced between 1880 and 1881. This file, IOR/L/E/6/44, File 730, contained printed copies of internal correspondence within the Government of Madras Marine Department, as well as a copy of a complaint written in 1879 by Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes and the Directors of the Strangers’ Home, and remarks on that complaint from British Consuls in European ports.
The complaint itself argues that too many destitute lascars and ’Asiatic seamen’ have been sent to London by British officials in foreign ports, and that more provisions need to be made for their welfare, so they do not become destitute. The complaint includes four suggestions for how to achieve this.
This collection of correspondence demonstrates, through the various Consuls’ defences of their own positions and actions regarding lascars, that responsibility for lascar welfare was a concern oftentimes suspended between missionary and philanthropic organisations such as the Strangers’ Home, and Britain’s colonial bureaucracy and officials abroad. The British Consul at Rotterdam, for example, acquits British officials of any responsibility for high numbers of destitute lascars in his response to Hughes’s complaint:
‘In my opinion the remedy of an evil (if it can be so styled) is being sought in the wrong place. So long as Asiatics can be engaged as seamen or firemen in Indian or other Asiatic ports on the same terms as Europeans, there is no doubt that the number of such seamen temporarily destitute in European harbours […] will increase in proportion to the increased development of steam communication with the East.’
Furthermore, some of the Consuls refer to economic rather than welfare concerns surrounding the movement and repatriation of lascars. In this manner, the Strangers’ Home & the destitute lascars discussed became vehicles for a discourse about British subjects and state responsibility, while the movements of the lascars themselves were controlled and restricted.
Lucy and I have now begun the task of transcribing and cataloguing these materials. I feel certain that this experience of archival research will be invaluable as I enter my third year of my BA and tackle my dissertation; more importantly, however, it has served as confirmation that further study is something I want to pursue after I graduate.
[2] ‘File S&C 730/1880 – Government of Madras Marine Department papers in connection with a complaint by the Directors of the Strangers Home for Asiatics regarding the great number of Asiatic seamen sent to London in a destitute condition from continental ports,’ IOR/L/E/6/44, File 730: Dec 1879-May 1880, British Library, London
The Mission to Seamen opened a branch in Liverpool in 1856 to expand their spiritual and moral welfare objectives for British seamen. The Mersey Mission to Seamen was established in 1873 as a more autonomous body. It operated out of several premises in places such as Runcorn, Birkenhead, Bootle, and Garston, aside from Liverpool, before moving into a new building on Hanover Street in 1885. The Mission’s logo, an angel in flight with a book in hand, made no secret of their gospel-preaching ambitions and widening reach.
Source: ‘The Mersey Mission to Seamen: Its Work and Needs’, Elder Dempster Magazine 7, no. 2 (1923): 178-81 (Liverpool Central Library H 387.31805 ELD_2)
I visited the Liverpool Central Library to consult their records (LCL 361 MER), the Beatles’ version of Maggie Mae ringing in my ears. This collection includes 9 volumes of minute books (1866-1967), 40 miscellaneous documents (1848-1953), and 123 photographs (1895-1967). I read the annual reports of the Mission from 1889 to 1914, among other documents, which provide a useful snapshot of the nature of spiritual service and material benefits for seamen. The reports generally declared the Mission’s ever-increasing influence on seamen and acknowledged the support of the public towards its activities.
The 40th annual report, for instance, says that a large number of seamen used the Central Institute (in Liverpool) for games, seeking advice from the staff of the Mission, and to enjoy the ‘freedom and security of a carefully managed Social Club’ (Report of the Mersey Mission to Seamen Society for the Year 1897, p. 7). The Mission encouraged seamen to write letters (10,712 written in a year), attend religious meetings, enroll in a Communicants’ Union, and learn first aid with the St. John’s Ambulance Association.
Source: Mersey Mission to Seamen Annual Report for the Year 1897 (Liverpool Central Library 361.3 MER)
A key feature of this report was the information regarding the establishment of a women’s association named ‘Mersey Mission Helpers’ (Ibid, p. 12). I will further explore women’s role in seamen’s missions in Liverpool and other port cities. Another interesting fact was the individual efforts of the clergy in connecting and keeping in touch with the seamen who passed through these institutes. The reader-in-charge of the Garston branch, for example, wrote 226 letters to seamen and saved all their responses. He was even invited to visit their homes (Ibid, p. 21). Such narratives are helpful for unpacking the capacity, authority, and impact of the Mersey Mission.
It’s been a full year since Professor Hilary Carey and Dr Sumita Mukherjee were awarded funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the ‘Mariners’ project. To celebrate this milestone, we’re very happy to have been featured on the excellent Arts Matter Blog with an article about our progress over the past year. We’ve become a team of five; commissioned a website to showcase our findings; been busy in the archives of the British Library and Hull History Centre; and are exploring venues and themes for our conference and exhibition in our second and third years.
The full post is available to read here, along with a plethora of fascinating articles by our colleagues at the university.
A huge thank you to George and the Arts Matter team for featuring us, we look forward to Year 2!
Image: Hull Seamen’s and General Orphan Asylum, 1860. Hull History Centre, The Records of the Hull Seamans and General Orphanage, ALBUM 1863-1900, C DSHO 2/56. Credit: Hull City Archives, Hull History Centre
