Long-time London resident and avid museum and theatre-goer. I started this blog in 2014, and got serious about it in 2020 when I realised how much I missed arts and culture during lockdowns. I go to a lot more events than anyone would think is sensible, and love sharing my thoughts in the forms of reviews, the occasional thought piece, and travel recommendations when I leave my London HQ.
A walk through Spitalfields and Brick Lane reveals that Bengali history in the East End extends much further back than twentieth century migrations.
Today’s walk is brought to us by Tower Hamlets’ Idea Store (library) website. You can find it here if you want to try it out for yourself!
The East End: Basically Like A Layer Cake
Yes it is, isn’t it! Thanks to the resources from Tower Hamlets Council, we have been able to explore several of these layers. We have traced Black history from Tower Hill to West India Docks. We have explored Spitalfields in depth. then we returned to Spitalfields to look at its Jewish history, as well as going further afield in the Jewish East End. And today we are back in the Spitalfields/Brick Lane area, this time looking at it through a lens of Bengali history.
All of this goes to show the depth there is to London’s history. We can return to the same geographical area again and again, but by being curious and noticing something different every time, we continue to make new discoveries. The most interesting discovery for me in terms of London’s Bengali history is just how far back it goes. The Idea Store pamphlet explains this well. It sounds silly, and shows the extent to which I fail to join the dots sometimes, but even just referencing the East India Company in this context was an eye opener for me. I mean of course – East India Company – Bengal as a region is in the East of India’s colonial boundaries.
So since that time there have been Bengali people in London. Some came as sailors, or in the retinues of colonial administrators. Some left again, some stayed on and made a life for themselves in England. Not everyone stayed by choice – some Bengalis were abandoned by unscrupulous employers or otherwise fell on hard times. So charitable institutions focusing on the Bengali community are another long-standing feature of London life. Let’s head off then and see what traces there are of historic and contemporary Bengali life in London’s East End.
The Bengali East End – Aldgate to Lloyds Register
Does this look familiar? It should – St Botolph’s Aldgate is precisely where we began Part I of our walk in the Jewish East End. There has been a church here since the time of William the Conquerer, although this version dates to the 1740s. The architect was George Dance, teacher of Sir John Soane (they also collaborated together on part of Pitzhanger Manor). Before Dance’s day, there was a burial here in 1618 of a converted Indian Christian, who may have been Bengali: “James, Indian servant of James Duppa Brewer”.Somewhere around here (although no trace remains today) was an Ayahs’ home and job centre. Mr and Mrs Roger set it up in the 1890s for ayahs/nannies (Bengali, but also from other parts of India, Burma and China) to seek lodgings and work or arrange passage home. The pamphlet doesn’t go into much detail, but there was a real issue with women being abandoned in a foreign country, with no means of supporting themselves. You can read more here. The building on the left is Sir John Cass’s Foundation, which we saw on this walk around London’s Roman walls.This particular Lloyd’s building is on the site of East India House, home until 1873 to the East India Company. The modern part is a Richard Rogers design and not dissimilar to the famous Lloyd’s building elsewhere in the City, also by Rogers. Maybe predictably, however, I like the older building. Lloyd’s Register is separate to Lloyd’s insurance: the former came out of a need to collate and share maritime trade information, and today describes itself as a ‘provider of professional services’.
The Bengali East End – Houndsditch to Sandy’s Row
This unassuming street is Houndsditch. Do you remember it from this walk? Houndsditch was just outside the city walls in earlier times, and the name supposedly comes from it being used as a dumping ground. The fact that it was outside the city walls also made it a very multicultural area. In 1484 Richard III declared it illegal for ‘aliens’ to work in the City of London. So perhaps any early Bengali immigrants would have made their living around here.I had never before noticed these warehouses near Houndsditch. They are now a multi-purpose space following what looks like a 1980s renovation, but previously housed goods for the East India Company. These buildings stored spices, perfumes, pearls, tea, cotton, muslins, ginghams, calico, silks, indigo. Opium from Bengal, destined for China, would have been here too. In 1699, local weavers stormed the East India Company, angry at cheap foreign imports; from 1700 it thus became illegal to import cheap dyed and printed cotton. This caused devastation for many working in those industries, including in Bengal. This is Sandy’s Row in Spitalfields. You may remember the Sandy’s Row Synagogue further up. Today, though, we are here for former resident Ayub Ali Master rather than the synagogue. After WWI, increasing numbers of Bengali seamen settled in East London. Many found work in the food or textile industries. Ali ran a cafe catering to them, opening on Commercial Road in the 1920s. He also ran the Shah Jalal Coffee House on Commercial Road, known as Ayub Ali Dining Rooms. Ali lived here on Sandy’s Row in the 40s and 50s, and turned his home into a support centre for Bengalis. Here they could find lodgings, get help with letter writing, travel arrangements, or just advice. He also started the Indian Seamen’s Welfare League in 1943.
The Bengali East End – Petticoat Lane to Toynbee Hall
Just a nice view of the streets around Petticoat Lane with the City in the background.The East End’s connection to the textile industry goes back centuries. Huguenot immigrants were replaced by Jewish immigrants, who were replaced by Bengali immigrants, many working in textiles. Petticoat Lane market started in 1603, and still has a strong connection to textiles and fabrics. As do many shops in the streets nearby, such as this one specialising in printed fabrics for the African community. Many Bengali cutters, machinists, pressers and finishers still work in this area.Calcutta House, now part of London Metropolitan University, was once an East India Company tea warehouse. The East India Company shipped huge amounts of tea to Britain, first from China, and then from the 1850s from Assam (India) and Sylhet (present-day Bangladesh). Sylhet was also a source of sailors to work on boat crews. As well as this imposing warehouse, I like the Wash Houses building next door, also part of the university.On our walk around the Jewish East End, we learned how Toynbee Hall has long been an important community asset. From 1884 it has been a place of education and social action, first for local Jewish residents, and increasingly in the 20th and 21st centuries for Bengali residents. Bengali sailors and machinists have come here for English lessons. It has been the site of the local Bangladesh Film Festival. It’s also been a base for politicians and political activists – Clement Atlee lived here in 1910. And economist William Beveridge planned the modern welfare state from Toynbee Hall. Coincidentally, he was born in Bengal in 1879, the son of a colonial administrator.
The Bengali East End – Altab Ali Park to Brick Lane
Altab Ali Park was once the churchyard of St Mary Matfelon. Its use of Kentish stone (see bottom image) was distinctive, and is the origin of the area’s name: Whitechapel. The park’s modern name commemorates Altab Ali, a young Bengali murdered in a racist attack in 1978. Ali’s murder by National Front supporters was a turning point in mobilisation and resistance by the Bengali community. Like the murder of George Floyd, however, it is always a tragedy when it takes a death to spark that kind of change.In one corner of Altab Ali Park is a replica of the Shaheed Minar, a monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The colours and shape recall the flag of Bangladesh, and it is a monument to the “Language Martyrs”, shot on 21 February 1952 as they protested against the lack of recognition of the Bengali language in what was then Pakistan. The UN later named 21 February as World Mother Language Day, so there is often an event here in Altab Ali Park to mark the occasion.We’ve almost made it to Brick Lane, but a quick stop first at Sonali Bank. Our pamphlet mentions it as a bank which Bengali workers use to send remittances home. In this area we start to see shops, travel agents and other establishments catering to an Asian clientele.Now we’ve made it to Brick Lane proper! As we learned on our Spitalfields walk, Brick Lane takes its name from the huge numbers of bricks made here to rebuild London after the Great Fire. Brick Lane is now famous for its curry houses. The 1997 arch is by Mina Thakur; this and the lampposts again draw on the colours of the Bangladeshi flag.We also start to see street names translated into Bengali script in this area.
The Bengali East End – Around Brick Lane
The first proper stop on Brick Lane was meant to be the Modern Saree Centre, purveyors of a wide range of saris and other traditional garments. However, it’s not there any more. You may recall we actually saw the sign on a Georgian terrace in Princelet Street, but I am unclear whether the business has moved or whether the sign was salvaged. So instead, we carry on to Chicksand Street to find the offices of Janomot. This is London’s longest-running Bengali weekly newspaper, and just one of several Bengali-language news outlets.Back on Brick Lane, it soon becomes apparent that this Japanese restaurant/travel agent was once a cinema! There used to be a few cinemas around here which catered to Bengali films, but they shut down due to competition with video stores. At the time our guide was written this was Cafe Naz, thrust into prominence in 1999 when a car bomb exploded here, set off by a Neo-Nazi. Fortunately there were no casualties. The Cafe Naz sign still hangs on the building.Christ Church School, a Church of England primary school where a century ago 95% of the students were Jewish, and today 95% are Muslim. A beacon for inclusion and a symbol of demographic change.This lovely Georgian terrace houses the Bangladesh Welfare Association. Originally it was accommodation for the minister of the next-door Huguenot chapel, which is now the Jamme Masjid mosque. This is the largest Bengali community organisation in the country.
The Bengali East End – From Mosque To Brewery
And speaking of the Jamme Masjid, here it is! We have seen it a couple of times before – its journey from Huguenot chapel to synagogue to mosque perfectly encapsulates the layers of history in this area. The original Latin message on the sundial, “umbra sumus” (we are shadow), remains.The Kobi Nazrul Centre is a Bengali arts centre named for the national poet of Bangladesh. There is a lovely concert space upstairs, but as I visited just before the 17 May lifting of lockdown, there was not much to see but the building itself.We continue along Brick Lane, and come to the Truman Brewery complex, currently at the centre of a planning row.Since the brewery closed in 1988 and until this latest shopping centre “vision” came along, the space has played host to several nightspots. Our walking guide suggests we come here to sample homegrown Bengali underground music. This is a fine note to end on: we have pushed back our understanding of the Bengali presence in the East End by a few centuries, and also understood that this is not a migration frozen in time, but acted as the start of a cultural dialogue which is bearing fruit into the present. Thank you for joining me on this walk, I look forward to whichever corner of London we discover next!
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