The Special Issue has the theme: Mariners: Race, Religion and Empire and it is the culmination of the Mariners conference held at Bristol’s ss Great Britain last year.
The articles cover the same range of fascinating material which we traversed in the conference, with accounts of religious experiences and racial tensions across the working lives of both Lascar and British seafarers. There is an introduction by Sumita Mukherjee and Hilary Carey which draws together the different strands of the project around themes such as ‘home’ ‘race’ ‘religion’ and ‘place’. We are delighted with the surge of interest in the pieces which have already been placed on line – so do go and check out our work, and leave us some comments. We would love to hear from you.
The articles have not yet been put together as a Special Issue – but you can read them by following the links below. We are grateful to our funders at the Arts and Humanities Research Council whose funding has enabled us to publish all pieces for this Special Issue as Open Access. As researchers, one of the great advantages of this is that it means there is much more likelihood that our research will be read and circulated. Congratulations to Haseeb Khan who is currently leading the race for views for his terrific account of provision for Muslim sailors reflected in the architecture of Birkenhead’s Mere Hall Indian Seamen’s Home.
It’s five o’clock on a Friday afternoon and I’m heading to the pub… but there’s something special about this one.
I’ve been in the archives at the Hull History Centre all week, looking at the Missions to Seamen archives. Where better to go at the end of my first week than The Mission, a nearby pub that has been converted from the original Hull Mission to Seamen?
A blue plaque on the wall outside tells all the patrons coming in that Charles H. Wilson paid for the Seamen’s Mission to be built here in 1866. Wilson was a liberal MP who made his fortune from shipping who wanted to help the local community. The mission was here to help any seafarers in particular need, although they didn’t sleep here. Seafarers were sent to spend the night in the Sailor’s Home round the corner on Alfred Gelder street, but came to the Seamen’s Mission for somewhere warm and safe, with a place to worship and a recreation room to entertain themselves. This was right next to the Board of Trade offices and central to the docks, so was often full of sailors coming through and needing help.
The chapel was added on in 1927, and you can still see the beautiful stained glass window. Right underneath this stained glass, today there are four large pool tables, just as there were a hundred years ago. A report that I read from 1934 explained that this used to be “a very compact institute just opposite The Board of Trade offices, with a small but substantially built and beautiful church connected, and entered through the institute,” with “two billiard tables, canteen with light refreshments; offices and lavatories.”[1]
The glass is the same, the pool is the same, and there’s still warm food and bathrooms on offer. So what has changed since this was the Hull Mission to Seamen?
Most importantly, the presence of alcohol. The Seamen’s Missions were strict about temperance, and were firmly anti-alcohol. I opt for an alcohol-free beer in homage. Women were also only allowed if they were direct family members or were one of the female volunteers for the Missions. As a young, unmarried woman, I would not have been welcome in here, particularly because I’m wearing a short skirt that would have cast doubts on my reputation.
Many of the customers here are familiar with the Seamen’s Mission. I spoke to the barmaid at The Mission, Amber. According to her:
“lots of the people who come in like to talk about the history of the pub. They talk about when it used to be a church, and they talk about their memories of the shipping round here.”
She’s right: chatting to a few regulars at the next table, everyone seems to know the pub’s history. John, at the next table, sounds quite proud. He tells me why the road next door is called Dagger Lane:
“if you walked down here in the 1890s, you’d get hit on the head, and sent out on the ships. You’d wake up in South Africa.”
Crimping was a real fear for seamen, and one of the main reasons that the missions were set up. In public houses, men could be plied with alcohol that was often drugged and given huge bills, or “shanghaied” by being put on ships to far away ports against their will.[2] The twice-yearly publication from the Missions to Seamen, The Word on the Water, often warned about how common this practice was in the 19th century.
The Seamen’s Mission hoped to protect seamen from these dangers, so it is wonderful to see that this is still remembered 150 years later.
And if you want to look at the unchanged pool tables, stained glass, and lively conversation so you can imagine what the Seamen’s Mission was like, then The Mission is waiting for you on Dagger Lane.
[1] UDMS/11/1/191, “Report on Seamen’s Welfare Institutions in Hull: appendix to report”, 30th March 1934.
[2] G.J. Milne, People, Place and Power on the Nineteenth-Century Waterfront (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) 104.
Victorian streetscene, Black Country Living History Museum
It was my first visit to the living history museum, and found it very hard to tear myself away from the recreated worlds of the Victorian, Edwardian and – most recently – post-WWII eras to get back to the conference. I wandered in and out of the cottages showcasing the work of women chain makers, the noisescape of the machine press, and the canal with its retinue of coal barges and attendant ducks. There was a strong evocation of the industrial scene (though of course without the squalor, smoke and smells) and I was particularly impressed with the abandoned anchor, a remnant of the anchor makers who used to work in this area. In its own building was a recreation of the mighty Newcomen engine which, having once lived in a street (in Newcastle NSW) named after the great engineer, I found particularly impressive.
Anchor making was one of the Black Country industries on display in Dudley.
The conference was a packed schedule with up to five parallel streams around these broad themes, each curated by experts in their field.
Bodies, Sex and Emotions
‘Deviance’, Inclusion and Exclusion
Difference, Minoritization and ‘Othering’
Heritage, Environment, Spaces & Places
Inequalities, Activism and Social Justice
Life Cycles, Families and Communities
Politics, Policy and Citizenship
Work, Leisure and Consumption
I enjoyed catching up with Emily Cuming, who gave a splendid paper on ‘sailor’s daughters’ which analyzed working class women’s memoirs of absent, and sometimes abusive, sailor fathers. Other highlights were presentations by four curators from different ‘living history’ museums: Simon Briercliffe, director of the Black Country Museum, Kate Hill, from the Cregneash Isle of Man Folk Museum , Natasha Anson, on the Beamish North East England museum, and educationish Megan Schlanker on the use of living history in schools. While we spoke, the Dudley museum was full of teams of school children so it was clear new learning memories were being laid down in these places. The curators pushed back robustly on calls to avoid nostalgia, or to answer calls to highlight or ignore particular aspects of the past. I was also very happy to listen to papers by Bristol colleagues, Marianna Dudley (on the history of wind turbines), and Will Pooley (on queer magic in 19th century rural France).
Kate Hill from the Isle of Wight Living Museum discussing the challenge of representing the past.
As part of the ‘inequalities, activism and social justice’ theme, my paper was in the last session of the last day, and I was grateful to those who stayed the course. It was a privilege to talk about the Mariners project to this engaged and active group of researchers. My topic was ‘Missions to Mariners’, and I spoke about the challenge for reformers of pushing back against the old stereotype of ‘Jack Tar’ in order to promote the value of the pious sailor. There is a wealth of printed and archival sources relating to the movement, much of which we have been exploring for this project, but it is much more difficult to understand the values of working sailors themselves. This is part of my conclusion:
The maritime mission movement would leave a visible mark on British port landscapes, with its floating chapels, on shore seamen’s churches, institutes and bethels, and provision for education, housing and other forms of welfare. Although very little of this religious infrastructure remains, it initiated a revolution in the image of the sailor, from ‘Jack Tar’ to sober worker, which by the end of the century had largely displaced the drunken caricature of an earlier era.
My paper will be included in the Special Issue of the Social History Society journal, Cultural and Social History. The revised papers from the Mariners conference held on the ss Great Britain are now coming in and we hope the whole collection will soon be available, online and fully open access.
The following post is written by Claire Weatherall, the archivist responsible for the Mission to Seafarers collection at Hull History Centre and a member of the Mariners Advisory Board. In the post, they explore the question: What can we glean about the lives of sailors from the first publication of the Missions to Seamen? This was presented as part of the Mariners conference, at the ss Great Britain on 12-13 September.
Introduction
Whilst cataloguing the archive of the Mission to Seafarers I learnt much of the lives of the chaplains and lay readers who undertook the daily work of the organisation. Regular reports and correspondence from port stations to head office capture the activities of these missionaries in ports across the world. We might similarly expect to find the archive littered with references to individuals aided by the organisation. However, details of the lives of seafarers that the Mission sought to help are rarely captured in the official record.
We must think creatively to uncover the lived experiences of seafarers as revealed through interactions with missionary organisations. When cataloguing a series of publications produced by the Mission, I noticed that extracts from chaplains’ diaries, since lost to time, were often included in the early magazines. These extracts record encounters between chaplains and individual seafarers.
The Mission’s first known magazine, The Word on the Waters, was published in 1858 (Hull History Centre Reference: U DMS/13/1/1). It was intended for circulation amongst seafarers and supporters of the Mission’s aims. With this in mind, we should consider that content was likely selected to demonstrate successful outcomes from the Mission’s work and to expound its Christian objectives. Nevertheless, the details captured in chaplains’ accounts can help us piece together narratives of seafarers’ lives.
First volume of The Word on the Waters 1 (1858) and illustrated issue from The Word on the Waters, new ser. 33 (1897) whoiwing ‘A mission-cutter at work’. MTS Archive, Hull History Centre.
The lives of seafarers
So, what kind of details can we learn?
Firstly, we find that life in port away from home could leave seafarers vulnerable to unscrupulous individuals. An extract from the correspondence of the Mission’s first chaplain describes meeting a sailor in a ‘forlorn’ state whilst walking in the street. The sailor is said to have recounted coming ashore with several months of wages, being helped to buy new clothing and find somewhere to stay, where he was plied with alcohol and women, before receiving a huge bill that he was having to go back to sea to work pay off (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.34-35). The description matches a practice known as crimping, which many seafarers in port are known to have experienced. Whilst the anecdote is used to caution against the dangers of drunkenness and lewd behaviour, the details help us understand how easily sailors in a strange port could be taken advantage of. It also helps us understand factors contributing to financial hardship faced by some individuals.
Extract from Word on the Waters: ‘Surely the owners of ships should have more regard to the lives of seamen’.
We can glimpse details of physical conditions endured by seafarers. For example, a Bristol Channel chaplain records encountering a man onboard ship who was placed in irons and kept to a prison diet for striking the ship’s mate, thus revealing something of punishment at sea in practice (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.68). The same extract also notes that the chaplain was able to help secure the man’s release. Another extract highlights the lack of medical care available to seafarers: In the extract, a chaplain to the English Channel recounts visiting a vessel whose crew had been struck down by fever. The chaplain states that he found one man to be particularly ill but that the captain refused to allow him to be taken ashore for medicine. He describes rowing back at night with a surgeon friend and medicine to help the man (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, pp.116-119). Incidentally, in both examples, intervention by a chaplain led to physical improvements in the individual’s situation, suggesting that missionaries had a role to play in safeguarding the physical welfare of seafarers as well as their spiritual welfare.
Extracts also reveal details of working conditions experienced by some seafarers. For example, an extract from the journal of a Bristol Channel chaplain recounts the plight of a shipwrecked Scottish crew. He notes that the loss of their ship ‘was occasioned by overloading, and especially by having pine logs on the deck, which, getting adrift in a gale, stove in and carried away everything, rendering it dangerous and impossible also for the men to work the pumps steadily’, continuing ‘owners of the ships should have more regard to the lives of seamen. It is the overloading of vessels which causes a considerable part of the destruction at sea and loss of life’ (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.68-69).
We see evidence of literacy amongst seafarers. For instance, a Bristol Channel chaplain records meeting a sailor from Calcutta who had been baptized and educated by British missionaries. He notes that the two shared a book to read prayers and exposition during a service (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.67). Another example is given by a chaplain working on the Mersey, who recounts meeting ‘a black cook who had learnt to read English at Demerara’ having ‘obtained an old Bible from a sailor’ (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.187). The same chaplain also describes visiting an American ship and meeting a crew eager to receive reading material and converse with him: ‘All the sailors were blacks… I believe they could all read; they were very civil and respectful’ (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.255). As the above instances relate to seafarers of non-British origin who appeared to engage with Christianity, it is possible their inclusion is part of a narrative informed by missionary colonialism. Nevertheless, the accounts are evidence of reading ability amongst seafaring populations. Indeed, there are numerous instances describing British sailors reading religious texts and discussing the content with chaplains.
Extracts from the archives reveal how remote seafarers’ lives could be. For example, the honorary chaplain for Plymouth recounts a visit made by himself and female helpers to deliver books to the crew of a lightship. His description suggests such crews had no visitors and welcomed their visit for the conversation and company it brought (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.191). Similarly, the description of a visit by a chaplain at Great Grimsby to the lightkeeper and lifeboat crew at Spurn Point states that the inhabitants were 5 miles across sand to the nearest house, that they never had visitors, and the lighthouse keeper complained that ‘no one cares a straw for us poor souls, we may die and the sea bury us for ought others care’ (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, pp.85-86). In both instances, the chaplains describe difficulties reaching their destinations and the isolation in which lightkeepers lived. Reading between the lines we can see that missionary staff might have been the only regular company received by some isolated seafarers.
Final thoughts
To summarise, the brief entries we find in magazines such as The Word on the Waters can help us reconstruct the lived experience of both British seafarers and sailors of non-British origin. The surviving evidence reveals details of the dangers of life in port, working conditions, literacy, physical welfare, health care, and social contact, in addition to seafarers’ experience of interacting with missionaries. We don’t have space here to consider what conclusions we might draw from such evidence as regards the project’s themes of colonialism, race and religion, but hopefully this quick look has done enough to highlight that missionary magazines are a valuable research resource allowing us to explore these subjects.
Researchers from across the UK, the US, Europe, Australia and India came together in Bristol to talk and debate issues of race, religion and empire among maritime workers on 12-13 September 2024. From the conference venue we enjoyed a view of the iconic ss Great Britain and, on Friday, followed guides around Brunel’s landmark iron passenger liner.
Delegates took a tour of Brunel’s ss Great Britain.
Over seven lively panels, we encountered the trial of an enslaved black seaman in Victorian London (Umberto Garcia), the pre-history of the Cardiff race riots (Hassam Latif), and the religious background to Birkenhead’s Mere Hall Indian Seaman’s Home (Haseeb Khan). For the British strand, there was a touching account of the emotional lives of children in sailors’ orphan homes (Emily Cuming), and the place of Roman Catholics in the Royal Navy (Michael Snape). Workers’ religious politics in late colonial Calcutta were discussed by Prerna Agarwal, and Florian Stadtler considered the unique record of Aziz Ahmad and his mission to lascars in Scotland. Justine Atkinson took us to Australia, and the diverse seamen’s missions in the colonial port of Newcastle, NSW, while Houda Al-Kateb provided a rivetting account of passengers on the ss Great Britain – a great way to introduce us to the ship beckoning out the window. Ting Ruan spoke on lighthouses in China, drawing attention to the extreme disparity in the salaries of European and local Chinese workers. The two teams for the Mariners project presented on religion, race and the lascar body, and the soul of the sailor in missions to British seamen.
Haseeb Khan on Birkenhead’s Mere Hall Home for Indian Seamen.
The final session was made up of panels, beginning with archivist extraordinaire, Claire Weatherall, enlightening us on the challenges of knowledge exchange for archives and archivisrts, with examples from the Anglican Missions to Seafarers collection at the Hull History Centre. Asif Shakoor gave a moving presentation on the lascar legacy from the point of view of a community historian, and Brad Beaven and Valerie Burton enlightened us with wit and accumulated wisdom as maritime and social historians of port cities.
We have grand plans for publication, and hope to gather these rich contributions to maritime and religious history into a journal special issue as well as blog posts and contributions to the Mariners website.
