Biographies
In this section we look at some of the key men and women who were patrons, founders, and missionaries, involved in the lives of seafarers, who came from around the world, to British ports.
Source: E. H. Farrance, Twelve Wonderful Women (Pickering and Inglis 1948)
While the Mariners research project looks into the mentalities and realities of lives for seamen, this research is framed and understood through the work of missions and charities which sought to convert and support them.
Popular narratives and publicity for missions and maritime institutions in the nineteenth century often focused on the founders and leading patrons. High-profile individuals who were involved in the running of missions were often keen to emphasise their philanthropy and charity, and it is often easier to find historical material about their lives and works than the everyday lives of seamen.
In this section we look at some of the key men and women who were involved in the lives of seafarers, who came from around the world, to British ports.
Sumita Mukherjee, 'Biographies' Mariners: Race, Religion and Empire in British Ports 1801-1914, https://mar.ine.rs/who/biographies/
Retrieved 20 September 2024
Timeline Filter
Where Filter
Who Filter
What Filter
Hasaam Latif explores adverse conditions faced by lascars in British ports and depections of the 'Shivering Lascar'.
A profile of G.C. Smith, known as ‘Boatswain’ Smith, the most celebrated of all pioneer marine missionaries.
Marine missions and charities in relation to Bristol's floating harbour
Pioneer marine missionary and founding figure for the Bristol Channel Mission and Missions to Seafarers.
William Henry Giles Kingson, who published as W.H.G. Kingston, was a successful writer of novels and adventure stories for boys promoting Christian hardiness. He was the main motivating force behind the creation of the first national church mission to seamen, the Anglican Missions to Seamen, now the Mission to Seafarers.
The Merchant Seamen's Bible Society was founded in 1818 to supply British merchant ships with copies of scripture.
The Port of London Society (PLS) was founded in London following a meeting held at the City of London Tavern on Thursday 5 February 1818, ‘to consider the best means for affording religious instruction to British Seamen while in the port of London’.
Joseph Salter was one of the most prolific missionaries and writers to address ‘Asiatics’ in nineteenth-century Britain.
The London Sailors’ Home was the first short-stay, purpose-built home for sailors, and it set the model for scores of others that followed in British and colonial port cities.
The Episcopal Floating Chapel Society was the first attempt by the Church of England to provide a maritime church in the Port of London.
Working seamen lived dangerous and peripatetic lives which left families and dependants unprotected. Orphanages were created to provide opportunities for those left behind.
The Sailors' Home was established in 1837 to protect British seamen from crimping and local drinks that the colonial authorities considered pernicious for European constitution, and to 'civilise' them so that they would not destablise the ideology of white racial superiority that underpinned British colonialism.
Duleep Singh was the last Maharaja of the Sikh empire. He lived in England for most of his life and provided financial support for the Stranger's Home for Asiatics, Africans and Soutsea Islanders.
The Wesleyan Seamen's Mission opened in 1843. It was succeeded by the grand Queen Victoria Seamen’s Rest in 1902.
The Seamen’s Christian Friend Society (1848) had its origins in the ‘Thames Revival’ which emerged among common seamen around the Port of London on the final years of the Napoleonic wars.
The Liverpool Sailors' Home operated in Canning Place from December 1850. This establishment provided board and food, and carried out additional responsibilities such as medical assistance, religious instruction, and moral, intellectual and professional improvement opportunities.
The foundation stone for The Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders was laid by Prince Albert on 31 May 1856.
Mission to Seafarers was established in 1856 as a national Society, incorporating the Bristol Channel Mission and the Thames Church Mission. The Society provided chaplains to serve vessels and seamen afloat and ashore.
A guide to all the sailors' homes in England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland based on a parliamentary return in 1860.
This story recounts the construction of lighthouses along China’s coast under the oversight of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Customs, a Chinese state agency, had a distinctly cosmopolitan character but was dominated by the British. China’s lighthouse scheme incorporated advanced technology from Europe and the United States and involved personnel at all levels from around the world. This story illustrates the far-reaching British imperial networks and the accelerating process of globalisation during that era.
St Andrew's Waterside Church Mission was a high church mission at Gravesend catering not just for seamen but fishermen and emigrants.
The prevalence of drunken seamen had far-reaching social consequences in nineteenth-century Liverpool. The annual reports of the Sailors Home state many seamen signed the temperance pledge but the figure never crossed 20 percent.
Biography of Dame Agnes Weston
The Liverpool Seamen’s Orphan Institute was established in August 1869 in a temporary accommodation in Duke Street. Supported by leading shipowners and philanthropists it provided protection and education for the mercantile marine’s orphaned children.
The 'Blood and Water' Salvation Navy was a small mission to seamen created before the Salvation Army created its own Navy. This piece summarises the little that is known about the organisation.
In this story Steven Spencer, Director of Salvation Army International Heritage Centre, discusses the History of the Salvation Navy and its vessels, including its first flagship, The SS Iole.
In 1900, a mission room for lascars was established at Morpeth Docks, liverpool. It was known as 'The Birkenhead Mission to Asiatic Seamen'.
In 1903, a new Japanese Seamen's Home was opened by the Bishop of Osaka at 31 Elizabeth Street, North Woolwich, near the Royal Albert Docks.
The ‘British Indian Seamen’s Institute’, also referred to more colloquially as the ‘Lascar Club’ opened in 1909 in 313 Victoria Dock Road, E., opposite the Victoria and Albert docks.
A Lascar Institute in Birkenhead is mentioned in the annual general meeting minutes of the Mersey Mission to Seamen, held at the Liverpool Record Office. This appears to be a continuation of The Birkenhead Mission to Asiatic Seamen. The minutes first mention the Institute from 1910 and continue up into the 1920s, when a new building was constructed.
Women have contributed in many significant ways to the work of missions to seafarers. Marine industries were and are isolating and dangerous, and the risks were endured by families at home as well as those at sea. Women and children were associated with marine missions initially as subjects of charity, but by the 20th century they were playing a more assertive role.