Cultural

Walk 3Exploring Banglatown

and the Bengali East End

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 orbuildings to mark their presence but some clues stillremain. In 1616 for example the Mayor of Londonattended St Dionis Church in the City for thebaptism of “Peter”, an East Indian from the Bay ofBengal, who had arrived in 1614 and whose‘Christian’ name was chosen 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

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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 Poem by Tagore13 Sonali Bank14 Brick Lane15 Offices of Janomot

newspaper16 Café Naz17 Christ Church School18 London Jamme Masjid19 Kobi Nazrul Centre20 Black Eagle

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.Church archives mention theburial of a converted Indian Christian (who may have been aBengali) ‘James, Indian servant of James Duppa Brewer’ herein 1618.

If you stand in front of the Church, Jewry Street is diagonallyto your right across Aldgate High Street, running southwards.East India House (Lloyd’s Insurance building) is round thecorner, in Leadenhall Street, running westwards.

The Merchant Navy WarMemorial by Tower Hilllists seafarers killed inWorld Wars I and II. Itincludes some of the 6,000Indian seamen who died,(many with Bengali names– Miah, Latif, Uddin,Choudhury, Ali) working asstokers, greasers, coaltrimmers and firemen inthe engine rooms, andcooks in the galleys.

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 1890s where nannies fromBengal, Burma and China could have lodgings, seek workand 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 ison the site of East India House (3), the East IndiaCompany’s headquarters from 1722 to 1873 after whichtime Lloyds took it over.

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.

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From the Church, turn right into subway (exit 7), come out ofexit 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 of theCity. The curing and tanning of leather took place here.Whitechapel’s messy haymarket was held three times a weekfrom the 17th century to 1926. Also banned from the Citywere brick making, theatres, places of entertainment andforeigners. In 1484 King Richard III declared it illegal for‘aliens’ (foreigners) to work in the City.

Take second right into Cutler Street (4). At the T-junction at Cutler Street the smartly renovated luxury officeaccommodation is directly in front of you. It occupies the 6/7storey former warehouses of the East India Company. Spices,perfumes, pearls, tea, cotton, muslins, ginghams dungarees,chintz and taffeta, calico, silks, indigo ivory and saltpeter ofthe company’s East India trade were stored here. So wasopium, grown in Bengal and sold particularly in China tofinance the tea trade. In 1699 angry local weavers, protestingat cheap imported cloth from Bengal, stormed East IndiaHouse. In 1700 the importation of dyed and printed cottonsfrom the East was banned in Britain, causing devastation inBengal.

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, mostly singleBengali sailors who left their ships to find work in the cateringindustry in the West End or jobs in the East End’s clothingindustry.

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 his homeinto a vital centre of support forBengalis which included a

lodging house, job centreoffering letter writing, formfilling, an education service, atravel agency and an advicebureau. He also started theIndian Seamen’s Welfare Leaguein 1943.

Just before Sandy’s Row, turnright into Frying Pan Alley, whichwill take you to Bell Lane, turnright to go towardsWentworth Street (6). At thecrossroads 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 with stallsselling Huguenot lace and silks. Visit when the market is openand spot a wide range of stalls selling leather, fashion andfabrics including printed cottons for the African community.

Progress to the far end of Old Castle Street to find CalcuttaHouse (7), once an East India Company tea warehouse, nowpart of London Metropolitan University. The East IndiaCompany shipped thousands of tons of tea to Britain. Firstlyfrom China and then in the 1850s 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

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 finisherscontinue the long tradition ofclothing production.

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) oftenrecruited their sailors fromSylhet.

Turn back up Old Castle Streetto Wentworth Street and fromWentworth Street crossCommercial Street and then turnright to find Toynbee Hall (8)on your left, which was foundedby Samuel and Henrietta Barnettin 1884 as a centre foreducation and social action inthe East End. The building hasimpressive political connections.Clement Attlee, MP forLimehouse and Labour PrimeMinister from 1945-51 livedhere in 1910. The economistWilliam Beveridge planned theprinciples of the modern welfarestate in Toynbee Hall. This workformed the basis for theestablishment of the NationalHealth Service and the modern benefits system. Beveridgehimself was born in Bengal, India, in 1879, the eldest son of ajudge 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 High Street.Commercial Road junction, which can be seen across the roadon the right, was built to enable the East India Company totransport its goods from the docks to their warehouses.

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

Continue along Whitechapel High Street where the famousWhitechapel Art Gallery has been exhibiting artwork since1902. At the southeast corner of the crossroads ofWhitechapel High Street, Osborn Street, Whitechapel Road,and Whitechurch Lane walk into the open space through theAltab Ali Arch (9) which was previously the churchyard.The ‘white chapel’ that gave the area its name stood here in1250. St Mary Matfelon’s Churchyard was renamed Altab AliPark (10) by Tower Hamlets Council in 1998 in memory of ayoung Bengali clothing worker from Cannon Street Road,stabbed to death in Adler Street in a racist murder on 4 May1978.

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 21 February 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 in asolemn 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 gofleetingly. Its fruit matures forsomebody whose coming I waitfor constantly

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 EastLondon – a community in the making for 500Years, Daniele Lamarche, (Shadinata Trust 2003);London’s East End – Life and Traditions, Jane Cox(Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1994)

Further InformationSwadhinata Trust, MMS & Associates, 50B Greatorex Street, London E1 5NP www.swadhinata.org.uke: admin@swadhinata.org.uk

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

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

EatingGive your taste buds a treat in Brick Lane’s many restaurants. www.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/quirky

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A large print version of this leaflet is available by contacting 020 7364 4958 or visiting www.towerhamlets.gov.uk

Exit the park via the Altab Ali Arch,cross the road and walk up OsbornStreet leading to Brick Lane.

Find a wide selection of Bengali/Asian music, films, newspapers andmagazines in the area. Visit GeetGhar (Osborn Street), andSangeeta, Mira and Music House inBrick Lane and Eastern Co-operative and others in HanburyStreet. The lively music pouringonto the streets mingles with

recordings of religious prayer further down Brick Lane creatinga vibrant atmosphere.

Note the Sonali Bank (13) on your left, where Brick Lanebegins, is used by Bengali workers to send remittances to theirfamilies in Bangladesh Also found here aretravel agents offering flights to Dhaka, Sylhetand to Makkah (Mecca) for the Hajj, themost important Muslim pilgrimage.

Continue onto Brick Lane (14) – an area of London that hasderived its name from the 17th century when, particularlyafter the Great Fire of 1666, London clay was dug up here indeep pits in the fields, to be fired in smoky kilns. Heavy cartsferried bricks along the rutted lane to Whitechapel. The

famous architect, ChristopherWren was noted to have saidBrick Lane was “unpassable bycoach, adjoining to dirty lands ofmean 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 material forthe clothing industry, particularlyfor the manufacture of women’sdresses and outerwear. Women’sgarments sold by top retailingchains are still made round here,

often as sub contracts in small workshops employing 5 to 8men or as piecework by Bengali women working at home. Atthe other end of Brick Lane is evidence of the now decliningleather industry.

Located at 26 Brick Lane is the Modern Saree Centre.The saree (sari) dates back 5000 years and is worn bymillions of women in Bangladesh and India. A sareeis 5–9 yards of cotton or silk, sometimes printed withsimple patterns and sometimes interwoven or

embroidered in silver, gold and other thread, worth hundredsof pounds. Usually wrapped around the body over a shortblouse and petticoat, it is a versatile garment that can be aloose flowing gown, a veil to cover the hair, tucked up asshorts for working in paddy fields, 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,especially during festivals and forweddings. In Bangladesh manywear a lungi (sarong). BengaliMuslim men and boys oftenwear a tupi (skullcap) whichcomes in many shapes, designsand colours, particularly whengoing to mosque.

On your right in ChicksandStreet are the offices ofJanomot (15), London’slongest running Bengali weeklynewspaper, first published on 21

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February 1969. Further down inGreatorex Street is Notun Din.There are six Bengali languagepapers, many magazines, tworadio programmes and twosatellite TV programmes servingLondon’s Bengali-speakers.

No. 46, now home to CaféNaz (16) was built where theold Mayfair Cinema of the1930’s once stood, whichbecame the Naz Cinema in the60s, showing Asian films andvisited by Dilip Kumar, the ClarkGable of the Indian filmindustry and his heroine VaijantiMala. Café Naz was thrust intothe news in 1999 when as carbomb planted by a neo-Naziexploded outside. Fortunatelynobody was hurt.

All four local Asian film houses – the Naz, the Palaseum andBangladesh Cinema Hall in Commercial Road and Liberty atMile End – closed down in the early 1980s with the advent ofvideo shops.

Past Café Naz on your left at 47a is Christ Church School(17). 95% of the pupils at Christchurch Church of EnglandPrimary School are Bengali Muslims. A century ago when theStepney’s Jewish population was 120,000, they would havebeen 95% Jewish. After school many of the children go alongto the Brick Lane Mosque for religious teaching and Bengalilessons.

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), smeared witha little lime, a pinch of tobacco and a sprinkle of aromaticspice - cardamom or turmeric. It is eaten after dinner as adigestive and stimulant and sucked and sucked, the limeproducing a brick red juice that dyes the mouth.

The Bangladesh Welfare Association was once located at 39Fournier Street (on your left). Originally built for the ministerof the church in 1750, it was the base of Huguenot charitablework with the local poor. Jewish charities were based here atthe end of the 19th century. The building housed the Pakistan

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Welfare Association from the1950s. After the independenceof Bangladesh, it was renamedShaheed Bhavan – Martyr’sHouse. The Bangladesh WelfareAssociation has branchesthroughout the UK.

London Jamme Masjid (18),the 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 FournierStreet side of the building isthe sundial bearing themournful Latin message umbrasumus – “we are shadow”. AMethodist Church from 1819,it became an orthodox Jewish Synagogue in 1898. In 1976 itbecame East London’s second mosque where Muslims pray toAllah. The building houses a religious school on the first floor.On Fridays piles of shoes of the faithful spill out onto the steps

from the large prayer hall on theground floor. Continue alongBrick Lane to Hanbury Street,turn left at the junction.

At 30 Hanbury Street is the KobiNazrul Centre (19), a Bengaliarts centre founded in 1982 andopened by Lord FennerBrockway. Exhibitions, seminars,concerts and performing artstake place in the beautifulconcert space upstairs. TheCentre is named after KaziNazrul Islam.

Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) isthe national poet of Bangladesh.Most of his plays, poems, novelsand songs were written between1920-30. The Britishadministration in India jailed himduring the Indian Independence

struggle and banned some ofhis books. A great humanist,he wrote against sectarianism,slavery, colonialism, and forsocial justice and women’srights.

Turn back onto Brick Lanewhere the walk is completedat the sign of the Black Eagle(20), where Truman, Hanburyand Buxton made ale from the17th century, using the cleanspring water and the skills of Huguenot brewers. The breweryclosed in 1988. The Brewery buildings have now beenconverted into some of London’s hippest nightspots, such asthe trendy 93 Feet East (150) and the Vibe Bar (93). Amongthe performers that you can see here are the homegrownBengali underground music outfits such as Asian DubFoundation, Joi, State of Bengal and Osmani Sounds and theyoung Asian talent explosion, the superb Nitin Sawhney andTalvin 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 and 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

While every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the informationin this guide, Tower Hamlets Council cannot accept responsibility for anyerrors, omissions or subsequent alterations.

Tastes of BanglatownSWEETS: Misti, made from sugar, flour, endlessly boiled milkand ghee (clarified butter), with flavorings of coconut,rosewater syrup, and pistachio. A must for the sweet-toothedBengali, often accompanied by many cups of sweetcardamom-laced chai. Is it often eaten at Baishakhi Mela (theBengali New Year Festival), when breaking the Ramadan fast,at Pujas, or when celebrating birthdays, weddings orwelcoming a visitor.

FISH: Find frozen freshwater fish that were recently swimmingin the haors (flooded fields) or rivers like the Ganges andBrahmaputra that lace Bangladesh – one of the world’s mostimportant freshwater fisheries. On offer is a wide variety ofBengali fish including Boal maach, Ruhi – mirror carp, Bhag – alarge leopard-spotted fish, tasty little Keshi, delicious oily Ilishmaach (Hilsa) or dried llish or Shidol, a pungent fish and shrimppaste.

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, mistikumra (pumpkins), aamphul (mango flower),kala thur (banana flower) and all sorts of saag(spinach).

CURRY: The Indian curry ranks only second to fish and chipsas the most popular food in Britain. Brick Lane has nearly 50Indian/Bengali restaurants and has been dubbed the ‘CurryCapital’ of the UK.

The first Indian curries sold in London were served in West Endcoffee houses during the 1770s. By 1960 there were 500Indian restaurants in Britain. Now there are 10,000, employing80,000 people with a turnover of £2 billion. Most are ownedand run by Bengalis. Curry houses servedishes cooked in a mix of British, Indian andBengali styles to suit the British taste. Somerisk hot Madras or very hot Vindaloo. Theuniversal Anglo-Indian hybrid, chicken tikkamasala, bears no resemblance to dishesactually eaten in the Indiansubcontinent. A number of restaurantsin Brick Lane now serve moretraditional Bengali cuisine withBengali vegetables andfreshwater fish.