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Written by the Remaking Britain team. First published December 2025.

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On 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a group of London merchants a Royal Charter to establish trade with the ‘East-Indies’. Initially this relationship was based on trade, but during the 17th and 18th centuries this evolved into conquest and colonisation. As the East India Company expanded, its political control increased. The Company introduced to the UK raw materials such as tea, cotton, silk, jute and rubber, essential to Britain’s development as an economic powerhouse. The East India Company was also involved in the slave trade in the Indian Ocean and further afield. In India, the EIC acted unscrupulously draining wealth from India through taxation and the export of resources. The East India Company maintained its own private army, made up of British officers and Indian soldiers, known as sepoys, to enforce the EICs interests and protect it from rival forces. The East India Company’s revenue collection meant that many people found themselves living in poverty, and the brutal enforcement of this regime led to famines. For example, in the 1769–70 Bengal famine over one million people lost their lives.

The importance of cross-empire trade grew during the time of British colonialism in India, known as the Raj, and was vital to Britain’s rapid industrialisation in the 19th century. The coming of steam-powered liners, and the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and Red Sea, reduced the journey times between both countries.

The improved connections increased the flow of goods from the subcontinent to Britain and in the other direction. This also increased the movement of people between India and Britain, which in turn led to the first South Asians arriving in Britain. In Britain, trade exhibitions, advertisements, educational pamphlets and magazine publications created a glamorous and exotic idea of an India of opulent palaces and maharajas. Below the surface lay the stark realities of the lives of workers, such as ayahs (nannies) and Indian seafarers, known as lascars, who journeyed between India and Britain. Some were transient, while some would jump ship and continue to make their life in Britain.

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Tea

One of the major commodities exported from India to Britain was tea. The East India Company began commercial tea production in Assam in the 1820s. A growing industry, by 1900 there were around 4000 tea estates in north and south India and over 2000 in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). This popular drink generated a hugely profitable industry, and a tea culture emerged in Britain with its own quintessentially English customs and rituals. The advertisement shown below from the tea manufacturer Lipton, promises a cuppa direct from ‘the tea garden to the teapot’. The romanticised image depicts a beautiful Indian woman in traditional dress consuming a comforting beverage. This depiction contrasts sharply with the harsh reality of a tealeaf pickers’ long hours of physical labour for poor pay.

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: P.P.7611. Public Domain

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Advertisement for Lipton's tea, 17 September 1892

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Advertisement for Lipton's tea, 17 September 1892

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P&O steam-powered liners

From the 1870s onwards, steam-powered passenger liners, the aeroplanes of their time, connected Britain and its Empire, ensuring the steady flow of people and goods to the remotest corners of the world. The first steam-powered ships arrived in India in the 1820s and from then onwards they became the lifeline of the British Empire, transporting troops, mail and raw materials and manufactured goods. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 shortened the sea journey between Britain and India and increased traffic. Travel on the liners was often seen as glamorous, but the harsh conditions for the South Asian mariners, known as lascars, working in the hold and firing the engines attest to a different reality.

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: NRM MLD1. Public Domain

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Advertisement for P&O and British India Lines steamliners, 23 April 1924

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Advertisement for P&O and British India Lines steamliners, 23 April 1924

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Lascars

Indian seafarers, known as lascars, worked as able seamen, deckhands, cooks and in engine rooms. The hard labour and commitment of lascar sailors ensured the smooth flow of trade, vital to the growth of Britain’s empire. The majority of lascars initially came from the coastal regions of East Bengal, the south-west coast of India and Gujarat. But as shipping and demand for sailors increased, more were recruited from agricultural heartlands such as Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, as well as Bengal and Assam. Lascars joined ships in the major port cities of Bombay (now Mumbai) and Calcutta (now Kolkata).

Due to technological advances in the 19th century, work aboard ship changed. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and increasing trade and passenger traffic through shipping lines like P&O, increased demand for labour aboard ship, with more roles for lascars. On British ships, their numbers rose from 24,037 in the 1890s to 51,616 by 1914. By 1930, 56,416 lascars were employed on British merchant vessels, a quarter of the entire labour maritime force.

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: P.P.7611. Public Domain

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Collage featuring South Asian seafarers, known as lascars, at work and in their lodgings on shore, Illustrated London News, 27 October 1906

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Collage featuring South Asian seafarers, known as lascars, at work and in their lodgings on shore, Illustrated London News, 27 October 1906

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Lascars were treated poorly by shipowners as a source of cheap labour with poor pay. Rooted in racial stereotypes, the  perception among ship-owners and the public was that lascars were essential as they could ‘stand the fiercest heat of the tropics better than any other race’. In reality, however, it was their low wages that made them an attractive labour force and allowed shipping companies to maximise their profits. While Indian lascars were officially British subjects, they were employed on so-called ‘Asiatic’ articles, a form of contract that outlined their terms and conditions, which meant that they received much lower wages than their European counterparts.

Lascars’ working conditions were hard, leading some to jump ship and settle in British ports. They were the earliest South Asian working-class communities in Britain, setting up cafes and lodging houses as alternative ways to make a living in port cities such as Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool and London. These served a growing number of lascars, who could find themselves in Britain for longer periods before finding return engagements.

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Ayahs

South Asian nannies, known as ayahs, played an essential part in the lives of British families in India. Many were among the ship passengers between India and Britain: families returning to Britain often brought ayahs with them to take care of the children on the long sea voyage. Highly experienced and resilient women, some ayahs travelled between both countries several times. Ms Antony Pareira, for example, made the journey on 54 occasions. There was an expectation that families would arrange return passages for their ayahs, but many found themselves abandoned on arrival in Britan. The ayahs usually had no contract of employment, despite offering a crucial service to their employers. Some could even be dismissed with no pay during the journey, while others were discharged. Ayahs were often left stranded, the families failing to honour their promise. While awaiting re-employment, they normally lived in squalid lodging-houses, and many had to resort to begging.

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: IOR/L/PJ/6/1035 File 3472. Public Domain

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Photograph of a group of ayahs with the matron of the Ayahs’ Home in Hackney, c. 1910

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Photograph of a group of ayahs with the matron of the Ayahs’ Home in Hackney, c. 1910

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: 10349.H.12. Public Domain

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Photograph of the interior of the Ayahs' Home in Hackney, 1904

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Photograph of the interior of the Ayahs' Home in Hackney, 1904

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These women became reliant on charitable organisations, such as the Ayahs’ Home in East London. One of the first bespoke lodging houses for ayahs was set up in Duke Street, by Mrs Rogers in 1825. After her death Mr and Mrs Hanson took over the property in 1867. They made much of it as a ‘Home for Indian Ayahs’. After moving between different owners and addresses, in 1900 the London City Mission took over the running of the Ayahs’ Home on King Edward Road, Hackney.

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: IOR/L/PJ/6/1035 File 3472 . Public Domain

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Advertisement for the Ayahs' Home, Hackney, 1910

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Advertisement for the Ayahs' Home, Hackney, 1910

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Each year the Home accommodated around 100 ayahs and Chinese amahs who were sent there by white British families. Their return ticket to India or China, normally provided by the family who had brought them to Britain, was sold by the Matron to another family needing a nanny. This money paid for the ayahs’ and amahs’ board and lodging – 14/- a week. Any shortfall was made up by donations. The Home found return placements for the women and therefore effectively worked like an employment agency. Run by a Christian charitable organisation, the Ayahs’ Home was more than a boarding house and a chief objective was to bring the ayahs and amahs under Christian influence, although it is unclear how successful these endeavours were.

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: B.S.Ref.1. Public Domain

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Report from Mrs Dunn’s testimony to Parliament regarding the treatment of ayahs by their employers, 19 November 1909

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Report from Mrs Dunn’s testimony to Parliament regarding the treatment of ayahs by their employers, 19 November 1909

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Public images of trade and Empire: Mirror of British Merchandise and the 1924 Wembley Exhibition

The Mirror of British Merchandise and Hindustani Pictorial News was an Urdu language magazine published in the late 1800s. Its cover illustrates vividly the colonial relationship between India and Britain. The magazine advertised goods that were manufactured with Indian raw materials in Britain (such as cotton, jute, rubber and silks) but sold back at higher prices to the Indian market. It also featured news, articles and pictures highlighting India’s close ties with Britain, including articles on Abdul Karim, Queen Victoria’s munshi (secretary), who taught her Hindustani, the cricketer, Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, known as Ranji, who achieved celebrity status in the late 19th century, or the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking, the first purpose-built Muslim place of worship in Britain.

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Cover of The Mirror of British Merchandise magazine, January 1893

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Cover of The Mirror of British Merchandise magazine, January 1893

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: 10639335. Public Domain

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Photograph of Abdul Karim, from the Mirror of British Merchandise magazine, January 1894

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Photograph of Abdul Karim, from the Mirror of British Merchandise magazine, January 1894

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Numerous Empire exhibitions showcased in spectacular fashion the resources, arts and crafts from Britain’s dominions and colonies across the world. They typically displayed a one-sided glamorised public face of the British Raj in India and provided, amongst its exhibitions, a theme park-like approach. At the 1924 Wembley Empire Exhibition, for example, the Indian Pavilion was modelled on Mughal architecture, with features from the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan’s tomb for his wife in Agra, and Delhi’s famous mosque, the Jama Masjid. The Indian Pavilion featured an Indian restaurant, run by Veeraswamy’s, displays of Indian cotton, a panorama of a tea plantation, foodstuffs, minerals and ores, as well as silks and textiles. The British Empire Exhibition transformed the Wembley area of London for good – the exhibition’s purpose built ‘Empire Stadium’ with its famous twin towers would later become the well-known Wembley football stadium. They were demolished in 2003 to make way for the new Wembley Stadium.

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Held by British Library. Shelfmark: NRM MLD1. Public Domain

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Advertisement for the Indian Pavilion and British Empire Exhibition, 1924

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Advertisement for the Indian Pavilion and British Empire Exhibition, 1924

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Conclusion

The subcontinent’s relationship with Britain is a long-standing one and the initial trading relationship led to many exchanges in both directions as both countries influenced each other economically, politically and socially. This relationship was built on unequal terms, in spite of the rhetoric of Empire which described India as the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ and the image sold to the British public at the time through advertisements, books and exhibitions.

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The text in this article is available under a Creative Commons License.

Credit: Remaking Britain team (Rehana Ahmed, Aleena Din, Sumita Mukherjee, Susheila Nasta, Maya Parmar, Florian Stadtler, Rozina Visram).

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