Exploring Banglatown and the Bengali East End

Exit the park via the Altab AliArch, cross the road and walk upOsborn Street leading to BrickLane.

Find a wide selection of Bengali/Asian music, films, newspapersand magazines in the area. VisitGeet Ghar (Osborn Street), andSangeeta, Mira and Music Housein Brick Lane and Eastern Co-operative and others in HanburyStreet. The vibrant music pouring

onto the streets mingles with recordings of religious prayerfurther down Brick Lane creating a vibrant atmosphere.

Note the Sonali Bank (13) on your left, where Brick Lanebegins, is used by Bengali workers to send remittances totheir families in Bangladesh Also found here are travelagents offering flights to Dhaka, Sylhet andto Makkah (Mecca) for the Hajj, the mostimportant Muslim pilgrimage.

Continue onto Brick Lane (14) – an areaof London that has derived its name from the 17th centurywhen, particularly after the Great Fire of 1666, London claywas dug up here in deep pits in the fields, to be fired insmoky kilns. Heavy carts ferried bricks along the ruttedlane to Whitechapel. The famous architect, Christopher

Wren was noted to have saidBrick Lane was “unpassable bycoach, adjoining to dirty landsof mean habitations.”

Mina Thakur’s Brick Lane Arch,dates from 1997 and like BrickLane’s lamp posts, is adornedwith the crimson and greencolours of the Bangladesh flag.Also note that street names aretranslated into Bengali script.

A number of shops still sellfabrics, linings, buttons,machinery and other materialfor the clothing industry,particularly for themanufacture of women’sdresses and outerwear.Women’s garments sold by top

retailing chains are still made round here, often as subcontracts in small workshops employing 5 to 8 men or aspiecework by Bengali women working at home. At theother end of the Brick Lane is evidence of the nowdeclining leather industry.

Located at 26 Brick Lane is the Modern SareeCentre. The saree (sari) dates back 5000 years andis worn by millions of women in Bangladesh andIndia. A saree is 5–9 yards of cotton or silk,sometimes printed with simple patterns and

sometimes interwoven or embroidered in silver, gold andother thread, worth hundreds of pounds. Usually wrappedaround the body over a short blouse and petticoat, it is aversatile garment that can be a loose flowing gown, a veilto cover the hair, tucked up as shorts for working in paddyfields, a cradle to carry baby or apurse. When it is completelyworn out and torn, Bengaligrannies use saree thread tomake Kantha hangings and quiltsin amazing cross stitch patterns.

Bengali men often wear the longPunjabi shirt and pyjama, especiallyduring festivals and for weddings.In Bangladesh many wear a lungi(sarong). Bengali Muslim men andboys often wear a tupi (skullcap)which comes in many shapes,designs and colours, particularlywhen going to mosque.

On your right in Chicksand Streetare the offices of Janomot (15),London’s longest running Bengaliweekly newspaper, first published

on 21 February 1969. Furtherdown in Greatorex Street isNotun Din. There are six Bengalilanguage papers, manymagazines, two radioprogrammes and two satelliteTV programmes servingLondon’s Bengali-speakers.

No. 46, now home to Café Naz(16) was built where the oldMayfair Cinema of the 1930’sonce stood, which became theNaz Cinema in the 60s,showing Asian films and visitedby Dilip Kumar, the Clark Gableof the Indian film industry andhis heroine Vaijanti Mala. CaféNaz was thrust into the news in1999 when as car bomb plantedby a neo-Nazi exploded outside.Fortunately nobody was hurt.

All four local Asian film houses– the Naz, the Palaseum andBangladesh Cinema Hall in Commercial Road and Libertyat Mile End – closed down in the early 80s with the adventof video shops.

Pass the Café Naz on your left at 47a is Christ ChurchSchool (17). 95% of the pupils at Christchurch Church ofEngland Primary School are Bengali Muslims. A centuryago when the Stepney’s Jewish population was 120,000,they would have been 95% Jewish. After school many ofthe children go along to the Brick Lane Mosque forreligious teaching and Bengali lessons.

At No. 74, the Music House, paan is prepared. The betel nutcomes from the tall Betel Palm (Areca) that grows acrossSouth East Asia. The betal nut is sliced thinly, wrapped in apaan leaf that comes from the Betel Vine (Piper), smearedwith a little lime, a pinch of tobacco and a sprinkle ofaromatic spice - cardamom or turmeric. It is eaten afterdinner as a digestive and stimulantand sucked and sucked, the limeproducing a brick red juice thatdyes the mouth.

The Bangladesh Welfare Association(18) is at 39 Fournier Street (on your left), Originally builtfor the minister of the church in 1750, it was the base of

Huguenot charitable work withthe local poor. Jewish charitieswere based here at the end ofthe 19th century. The buildinghoused the Pakistan WelfareAssociation from the 50’s. Afterthe independence ofBangladesh, it was renamedShaheed Bhavan – Martyr’sHouse. The Bangladesh WelfareAssociation is the largestBengali communityorganisation in the country.

London Jamme Masjid (19),Brick Lane Mosque (59) ishoused in a building whereworship has taken place bydifferent faiths for 250 years. Itwas built by French-speakingProtestant Huguenot refugeeswho named it La Neuve Eglise,(the New Church) in 1743.High above, on the Fournier Street side of the building is thesundial bearing the mournful Latin message umbra sumus –“we are shadow”. A Methodist Church from 1819, it becamean orthodox Jewish Synagogue in 1898. In 1976 it becameEast London’s second mosque where Muslims pray to Allah.The building houses a religious school on the first floor. On

Fridays piles of shoes of thefaithful spill out onto the stepsfrom the large prayer hall onthe ground floor. Continuealong Brick Lane to HanburyStreet, turn left at the junction.

At 30 Hanbury Street is theKobi Nazrul Centre (20), aBengali arts centre founded in1982 and opened by LordFenner Brockway. Exhibitions,seminars, concerts andperforming arts take place inthe beautiful concert spaceupstairs. The Centre is namedafter Kazi Nazrul Islam.

Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976)is the national poet ofBangladesh. Most of his plays,

Further informationThe AuthorThis booklet was compiled and written by Dan Jones, a youthworker in Tower Hamlets from 1967, now working forAmnesty International. It was largely based on research byDaniele Lamarche of Shadinata Trust, and by Jo Skinner, ChrisLloyd and Ansar Ahmed Ullah of Tower Hamlets Council.

References Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers, Caroline Adams (THAPBooks 1987); Asians in Britain – 400 years of History, RozinaVisram (Pluto Press 2002); Indians in Britain, Rozina Visram(Batsford 1987); The Roots of Subcontinental Cooking, YousufChoudhury (Rina Press 2002); Bengalis in East London – acommunity in the making for 500 Years, Daniele Lamarche,(Shadinata Trust 2003); London’s East End – Life andTraditions, Jane Cox (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1994)

Further InformationShadinata Trust, London Metropolitan University, Unit 1, 59-63 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7PFTel 07956 890689 Email [email protected] www.shadinata.org.uk

Bangladesh Welfare Association39 Fournier Street, London E1 6QETel 020 7247 2105 Fax 020 7247 7960

London Jamme Masjid (Brick Lane Mosque)59 Brick Lane London, E1 6QLTel 020 7247 6052

Places to go, things to doTo find out more about Spitalfields andshopping in Tower Hamlets visitwww.spitalfields.org.uk orwww.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/discover

EatingGive your taste buds a treat in the many retaurants. Brick Lane Restaurantswww.bricklanerestaurants.com

ShoppingFor a definitive guide to the more unusual andunique shops in the area, pick up a copy of the Quirky Shopping Guide or download it from www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/discover/downloads/QuirkyGuide.pdf D

Tastes of BanglatownSWEETS: Misti, made from sugar, flour, endlessly boiledmilk and ghee (clarified butter), with flavorings of coconut,rosewater syrup, and pistachio. A must for the sweet-toothed Bengali and is often accompanied by many cups ofsweet cardamom-laced chai. Is it often eaten at BaishakhiMela (the Bengali New Year Festival), when breaking theRamadan fast, at Pujas, or when celebrating birthdays,weddings or welcoming a visitor.

FISH: Find frozen freshwater fish that were recentlyswimming in the haors (flooded fields) or rivers like theGanges and Brahmaputra that lace Bangladesh – one of theworld’s most important freshwater fisheries. On offer is awide variety of Bengali fish including Boal maach, Ruhi –mirror carp, Bhag - a large leopard spotted fish, tasty littleKeshi, delicious oily Ilish maach (Hilsa) or dried llish orShidol, a pungent fish and shrimp paste.

VEGETABLES: Vegetables on display includewhite radish, sweet potato, egg plant, okra,sheem beans, shatkora, a bitter lemony fruitof Sylhet, khacha kola (green plantain),jhinga (ribbed sponge gourd), chalkumra,misti kumra (pumpkins), aamphul (mangoflower), kala thur (banana flower) and allsorts of saag (spinach).

CURRY: The Indian curry ranks only second to fish andchips as the most popular food in Britain. Brick Lane hasnearly 50 Indian/Bengali restaurants and has been dubbedthe ‘Curry Capital’ of the UK.

The first Indian curries sold in London were served in WestEnd coffee houses during the 1770s. By 1960 there were500 Indian restaurants in Britain. Now there are 10,000,employing 80,000 people with a turnover of £2 billion.Most are owned and run by Bengalis. Curry houses servedishes cooked in a mix of British, Indianand Bengali styles to suit the British taste.Some risk hot Madras or very hot Vindaloo.The universal Anglo-Indian hybrid, chickentikka masala, bears no resemblance todishes actually eaten in the IndianSubcontinent. A number ofrestaurants in Brick Lane now servemore traditional Bengali cuisinewith Bengali vegetables andfreshwater fish.

poems, novels and songs werewritten between 1920-30. TheBritish administration in Indiajailed him during the IndianIndependence struggle andbanned some of his books. Agreat humanist, he wroteagainst sectarianism, slavery,colonialism, and for socialjustice and women’s rights.

Turn back onto Brick Lane where the walk is completed atthe sign of the Black Eagle (21), where Truman, Hanburyand Buxton made ale from the 17th Century, using theclean spring water and the skills of Huguenot brewers. Thebrewery closed in 1988. The Brewery buildings have nowbeen converted into some of London’s hippest nightspots,such as the trendy 93 Feet East (150) and the Vibe Bar (93).Among the performers that you can see here are thehomegrown Bengali underground music outfits such asAsian Dub Foundation, Joi, State of Bengal and OsmaniSounds and the young Asian talent explosion, the superbNitin Sawhney and Talvin Singh.

Timeline1600 East India company founded

1614 First record of Bengali settlement in London

1617 Mughal Trade Treaty with East India Company

1757 Annexation of Bengal

1773 Norris Coffee House serves curry in Haymarket London

1801 First Lascars hostel

1802 The Ayah's home established in Aldgate

1895 M M Bhownaggree Asian MP for Bethnal Green

1920 First Indian restaurant in East London

1947 Indian independence and partition of India, Pakistan

1951 Pakistan Welfare Association founded

1971 Bangladesh liberation

1976 Jamme Masjid opened

1978 Altab Ali killed

1999 Brick Lane and surrounding area branded Banglatown

Cultural

Walk 3Exploring Banglatown

and the Bengali East End

Start at Aldgate Station (notAldgate East) turn right (west)towards the City of London.

Begin the walk at an East Endsite with early links to Bengalisettlers. St Botolph’sChurch, Aldgate (1), whichis dedicated to the patron saintof travellers, has stood heresince the reign of William theConqueror. The current churchwas built between 1741 and1744 by George Dance. Churcharchives mention the burial ofa converted Indian Christian (who may have been aBengali) “James, Indian servant of James Duppa Brewer”here in 1618.

If you stand in front of the Church, Jewry Street isdiagonally to your right across Aldgate High Street,running southwards. East India House (Lloyd’s Insurancebuilding) is round the corner, in Leadenhall Street, runningwestwards.

The Merchant Navy WarMemorial by Tower Hill listsseafarers killed in WorldWars I and II. It includessome of the 6,000 Indianseamen who died, (manywith Bengali names – Miah,Latif, Uddin, Choudhury,Ali) working as stokers,greasers, coal trimmers andfiremen in the engine rooms,and cooks in the galleys.

IntroductionToday approximately 300,000 Bengalis live in Britain, most ofwhom originate from Bangladesh, from the region of Sylhet inthe north east of the country. Other Bengalis come from WestBengal in India.

Tower Hamlets has a long tradition of welcoming immigrantpopulations from all over the world including Huguenots inthe 18th century and Jews in the 19th century. Now one thirdof the population in Tower Hamlets is Bengali, thelargest Bengali community in the UK.

However many people are often not aware thatBengali people have lived in London for nearly 400years. Early Bengali residents left few signs or buildingsto mark their presence but some clues still remain. In1616 for example the Mayor of London attended StDionis Church in the City for the baptism of “Peter”,an East Indian from the Bay of Bengal, who hadarrived in 1614 and whose ‘Christian’ name waschosen by James I.

The thriving streets of the modern East End ofLondon offer a fascinating insight into the BritishBengali community’s significant contribution to

contemporary UKculture, from musicand food, to politicsand architecture.

Banglatown and theBengali East End

Walk 3

Starting point St. Botolph’s, Aldgate

Finishing point Truman’s Brewery

Estimate time 1.5 hours

The East India CompanyThe East India Company was of vital importance to thedevelopment of the East End and its links to Bengal. It beganto develop trade with Asia in 1600, particularly in spices andby 1608 its first ships had arrived in Surat, India. In 1614 thecompany had built its own dock in Blackwall, London.

The company’s first trading factory opened in India in 1615.In 1757 the company took control of Bengal. Its ships broughtback precious cargoes of goods to east London, but also ahuman cargo of immigrant workers - lascars (Asian seamen)and later ayahs (Indian nannies, nurse maids and servants)who accompanied the families of the colonial memsahibs(wives of senior officials) of the Raj back to Britain.

The numbers of lascars arriving in the Port of London on EastIndia Company ships - and later on P&O, Clan Line Steamersand British India Steamship Company vessels - grew to over athousand by the Napoleonic War and to many morethousands through the 19th century. Many arrivals wereBengalis who returned home on the next passage. Howeversome jumped ship. Others were just abandoned here withoutwages by unscrupulous employers.

The East India Company records lascars arriving at theirLeadenhall Street offices “reduced to great distress andapplying to us for relief” (1782). From 1795 lascar hostels andseamen’s homes were set up in Shoreditch, Shadwell andWapping. The lives of lascars were often poverty stricken andhard. In the winter of 1850 “some 40 sons of India” werefound dead of cold and hunger on the streets of London. TheSociety for the Protection of Asian Sailors founded theStranger’s Home in Limehouse in 1857.

Across Aldgate High Street is Jewry Street (2). Mr andMrs Roger set up an Ayah’s home and job centre on thecorner of India Street in the 1890’s where nannies fromBengal, Burma and China could have lodgings, seekwork and arrange passage home.

On the right is Lloyd’s Insurance building, designed byRichard Rogers, with its twin rooftop blue cranes (bluelights at night), which towers above Leadenhall Street.It is on the site of East India House (3), the EastIndia Company’s headquarters from 1722 to 1873 afterwhich time Lloyds took it over.

From the Church, turn right into subway (exit 7), come outof exit 2 (westside) into Houndsditch which is the old moatoutside the city wall. Over the centuries noxious trades wereconfined to the east of Houndsditch beyond the walls ofthe City. The curing and tanning of leather took place here.Whitechapel’s messy haymarket was held three times aweek from the 17th Century to 1926. Also banned from theCity were brick making, theatres, places of entertainmentand foreigners. In 1484 King Richard III declared it illegalfor “aliens” (foreigners) to work in the City.

Take second right into Cutler Street (4). At the T-junctionat Cutler Street the smartly renovated luxury officeaccommodation is directly in front of you. It occupies the6/7 storey former warehouses of the East India Company.Spices, perfumes, pearls, tea, cotton, muslins, ginghamsdungarees, chintz and taffeta, calico, silks, indigo ivory andsaltpeter of the company’s East India trade were stored here.So was opium, grown in Bengal and sold particularly inChina to finance the tea trade. In 1699 angry local weavers,protesting at cheap imported cloth from Bengal, stormedEast India House. In 1700 the importation of dyed andprinted cottons from the East was banned in Britain,causing devastation in Bengal.

From Cutler Street go south eastwards and then left intoHarrow Place, from Harrow Place turn left into MiddlesexStreet and go up to Sandy’s Row, which is the 2nd road onthe right.

From the end of World War 1 more Asian seamen began tosettle in this area. Their numbers grew steadily, mostlysingle Bengali sailors who left their ships to find work inthe catering industry in the West End or jobs in the EastEnd’s clothing industry.

An early and influential Bengaliresident was Ayub Ali Master,who lived at 13, Sandy’s Row(5) between 1945-59. He ran aseamen’s café in CommercialRoad in the 1920s and the ShahJalal Coffee House, also calledthe Ayub Ali Dining Rooms at76, Commercial Street. ShahJalal was the Yemeni Sufi mysticwho came to Sylhet in 1303.Ayub Ali Master turned hishome into a vital centre ofsupport for Bengalis which

included a lodging house, jobcentre offering letter writing,form filling, an educationservice, a travel agency and anadvice bureau. He also startedthe Indian Seamen’s WelfareLeague in 1943.

Just before Sandy’s Row, turnright into Frying Pan Alley,which will take you to BellLane, turn right to go towardsWentworth Street (6). Atthe crossroads of Bell Lane,Wentworth Street and GoulstonStreet turn left. First right is OldCastle Street, where CalcuttaHouse is situated.

Walk through to Wentworth Street, part of the famousPetticoat Lane Sunday Market which started in 1603 withstalls selling Huguenot lace and silks. Visit when themarket is open and spot a wide range of stalls sellingleather, fashion and fabrics including printed cottons forthe African community.

Progress to the far end of Old Castle Street to find CalcuttaHouse (7), once an East India Company tea warehouse,now part of London Metropolitan University. The East IndiaCompany shipped thousands of tons of tea to Britain. Firstlyfrom China and then in the 1850’s from Assam (India) andBritish tea estates on the hills of Sylhet, Bangladesh.

The building is named after the Indian city of Calcutta (nowknown as Kolkata) which was founded by Job Charnock, an

English sailor who settled in aBengali village 150 miles up theriver Hooghly in 1687. It soonbecame a trading post and fortof the East India Company anddeveloped into a great port city.Kolkata-based Indian serangs(headmen and boatswains ofAsian deck crews) often recruitedtheir sailors from Sylhet.

Turn back up Old Castle Streetto Wentworth Street and fromWentworth Street crossCommercial Street and thenturn right to find ToynbeeHall (8) (on your left), whichwas founded by Samuel andHenrietta Barnett in 1884 as acentre for education and socialaction in the East End. Thebuilding has impressivepolitical connections. ClementAttlee, MP for Limehouse andLabour Prime Minister from1945-51 lived here in 1910.The economist WilliamBeveridge planned theprinciples of the modernwelfare state in Toynbee Hall.This work formed the basis forthe establishment of theNational Health Service and the modern benefits system.Beveridge himself was born in Bengal, India in 1879 theeldest son of a judge in the Indian Civil Service.

Toynbee Hall has a long history helping the East Endcommunity. In the 1960s the Council of Citizens of TowerHamlets organised English classes for Bengali seamen andmachinists here. Today it continues to serve the Bengalicommunity by providing a meeting place, study centre,lecture hall and base for social programmes and religious,political and cultural events such as the Bangladesh FilmFestival. Bengali Hindus celebrate Durga Puja here.

From Toynbee Hall turn left southwards and continue upCommercial Street and turn left into Whitechapel HighStreet. Commercial Road junction, which can be seenacross the road on the right, was built to enable the EastIndia Company to transport its goods from the docks to

1 St Botolph’s Church2 Jewry Street3 East India House4 Cutler Street5 13 Sandy’s Row6 Wentworth Street7 Calcutta House8 Toynbee Hall9 Altab Ali Arch 10 Altab Ali Park 11 Shahid Minar,

‘Martyr’s Monument’

12 Tagore13 Sonali Bank14 Brick Lane15 Janomot16 Café Naz17 Christ Church School18 Bangladesh Welfare

Association19 London Jamme Masjid20 Kobi Nazrul Centre21 Black Eagle

their warehouses. Continue along Whitechapel High Streetwhere the famous Whitechapel Art Gallery, has beenexhibiting artwork since 1902. At the southeast corner ofthe crossroads of Whitechapel High Street, Osborn Street,Whitechapel Road, and Whitechurch Lane walk into theopen space through the Altab Ali Arch (9) which waspreviously the churchyard. The “white chapel” that gavethe area its name stood here in 1250. St Mary Matfelon’sChurchyard was renamed Altab Ali Park (10) by TowerHamlets Council in 1998 in memory of a young Bengaliclothing worker from Cannon Street Road, stabbed todeath in Adler Street in a racist murder on 4 May 1978.

The abstract monument on your right - a white structurerepresenting a mother protecting her children in front of arising crimson sun - is the Shahid Minar, ‘Martyr’sMonument’ (11), a locally founded replica of a largermemorial in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which commemorates the“Language Martyrs” shot dead on Feb 21 1952 by thePakistani Police while protesting against the imposition ofUrdu as Pakistan’s state language.

In February 1999 the United Nations declared February 21World Mother Language Day. At midnight on 20 February(Shahid Dibosh) the Language Movement is remembered ina solemn ceremony in the Park – to which the Bengalicommunity comes to lay wreaths. Abdul Gaffar Choudhury,journalist and freeman of Tower Hamlets, wrote the well

known Martyr’s Day song Amar bhaier rokterangano Ekushe February which is sung at

the ceremony.

Also find by St Mary Matfelon’sfoundations, a sapling that hasbeen planted to replace thegiant cedar that once stoodhere. Embedded in the pathmetal letters form a poem byBengali poet, RabindranathTagore (12) (1861 - 1941),who won the Nobel Prize forLiterature in 1911 and wrotethe national anthems of Indiaand Bangladesh.

The shade of my tree is offered tothose who come and go fleetingly.Its fruit matures for somebodywhose coming I wait forconstantly

Immigrants and the clothing tradeFor at least seven centuries immigrants have settled in theEast End and worked in the clothing industry. GeoffreyChaucer, who lived in Aldgate, describes a xenophobicmob chasing Flemish weavers down the streets ofWhitechapel in 1381. From 1590 French Huguenotrefugees developed silk weaving in Spitalfields. The Jewishcommunity worked here in the clothing trade particularlyfrom the 1870s to the 1970’s.

Today Bengali cutters, machinists,pressers and finishers continue the longtradition of clothing production.

Artist and blacksmith DavidPeterson made the wroughtiron arch at the entrance tothe park as a memorial toAltab Ali and victims of racistviolence.

Walk 3

the ceremony.

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the ceremony.

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the ceremony.

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the ceremony.

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the ceremony.

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the ceremony.

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the ceremony.

Cultural

Exploring Banglatown and the Bengali East End

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