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*Tracing Your Roots > South Asian > Perspectives on UK Records
* The Stranger's Home 
 
The majority of Asiatic seamen stayed in lodging houses or sailors' homes in seaport towns. The Stranger's Home in London, which was established in 1857 at West India Dock Road, Limehouse offered a comfortable and respectable lodging to every class of Asian, African and South-Sea Islander who came to England. The lodgers received wholesome food, at a cost that would render the institution self-supporting.

Annual reports of this house were printed giving an account of statistics of the home from June 1857 to the end of the reporting year of each report. The missionary's report gives:

  • Names of the seamen who converted from Islam or Sikhism to Christianity
  • The date of their baptisms
  • The names of seamen who were unsuited for any employment (as the home could only keep them for a short time, after which they were transferred to St George's Workhouse, Fulham)
There is a summary of visits made by missionaries in London to:

  • Ayahs' Home
  • Common lodging houses
  • London Hospital
  • Greenwich Hospital
  • Poplar Accident Hospital
  • Workhouses
  • Ophthalmic Hospital
The National Archives holds 1886, 1887 and 1889 annual reports under the document reference *(PRO) MT 9/362M1067/1890.

Records created by the Strangers Home and Poplar Institution may be available at the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives at:
Bancroft Library
277 Bancroft Road
London E1 4DQ
Web site: *www.eastendlife.net/services/archive


Creators: Abi Husainy

 
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