Image created for creatative purposes by Cruden Bay Life
This article explores how early-20th-century British newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, portrayed Lascar seamen—sailors from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Africa—as visibly out of place in Britain. A 1905 photograph taken at the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics Africans and South Sea Islanders symbolised official anxieties about the absence of British seamen and highlighted the dependence of maritime labour on multi-ethnic crews.
These men endured extreme contrasts: intense heat below deck at sea and, on arrival in Britain, severe cold for which they were ill-equipped. Press reports repeatedly emphasised their struggle with the British climate, often depicting them wrapped in blankets as visual markers of vulnerability and difference.
A typical example occurred in December 1912 when Lascar crewmen from the Clan Farqular arrived in Dundee. Newspaper descriptions focused on their “dusky figures” huddled in blankets while travelling onward by train, reinforcing narratives of hardship and alienation.
Living conditions for Lascars were harsh both aboard ship and on shore. They often slept on bare floors with little heating, minimal bedding, and no proper medical facilities. On land, unless they secured lodging, blankets remained their only protection against winter, prompting many to seek shelter at institutions such as the Strangers’ Home.
The wreck of the Wistow Hall
In January 1912, tragedy struck with the wreck of the Wistow Hall. Press accounts describe a single surviving Lascar emerging from the freezing sea and being led through a hall where victims’ bodies were laid out. There, he recognised the body of his brother, starkly illustrating the personal loss endured by Lascar sailors. The subsequent funeral procession became a powerful symbol of the deadly risks of seafaring, risks borne disproportionately by non-European crews.
Similar imagery appeared after the wreck of the Oceana in 1912. Reports from the Illustrated London News and the Daily Mirror showed Lascar survivors—often barefoot, in nightclothes, and wrapped in blankets—standing beside European crew members. Notably, press attention fixated almost exclusively on the Lascar sailors’ appearance, reinforcing racialised distinctions.
Despite these hardships, accounts occasionally noted small acts of resilience, such as survivors saving personal items like pipes. Missionaries and observers, including Joseph Salter, condemned the indifference shown toward Lascars’ welfare, stressing that their lives—and even their deaths—attracted little concern.
Overall, the article shows how British media framed Lascars as struggling, vulnerable outsiders. Yet beneath these portrayals lies a story of endurance, loss, and resilience within the transnational lives of sailors of colour navigating a hostile climate and society far from home.