The Lost Child of Empire: Racialisation, Criminalisation, and The Lives of Lascars in Britain 1870-1920

Abstract
This thesis examines the complex experiences of Lascar Sailors within the maritime world of the British Empire from the late-nineteenth to the early-twentieth century. Through five interlinked chapters, it examines how race, labour, authority, resistance, and imperial ideology intersected both aboard British ships and in the port cities of Britain. Central to this analysis is the figure of the Serang, a key intermediary between European officers and Lascar crews, whose role embodied both protection and coercion. The 1910 murder of Serang Habeed Sued by fellow Lascar Sulleyman Adam serves as a central case study for understanding tensions within colonial shipboard hierarchies.

The thesis analyses pivotal legal cases, including the 1874 trial of Captain Walters, the 1890 killing of Captain Lyall by Bhagwan Jassiwara, and the 1910 Adam case, to trace shifting modes of Lascar resistance, from legal appeals to internalised conflict. Beyond maritime spaces, the thesis interrogates racialised depictions of Lascars in Victorian Britain, particularly during the 1888 Whitechapel murders. It shows how Lascars were imagined as both victims and threats, reinforcing imperial anxieties about race, sexuality, and urban decline. This is further explored through the trope of the “shivering Lascar,” a racialised symbol of vulnerability, disease, and exclusion, constructed through media, literature, and public health discourse.

The final chapter situates the 1919 Cardiff Race Riots within the longer history of port-city racial tensions, highlighting both inter-ethnic conflict and emergent solidarities among sailors of colour. By tracing this evolution from fragmentation to collective resistance, the thesis repositions dockside spaces as key sites of colonial encounter and working-class struggle. Drawing on court records, missionary reports, newspapers, and alternative archives, this study rethinks British imperial labour history by centring the lived experiences of marginalised seamen. It argues that Lascars were not peripheral figures but vital agents whose lives illuminate the emotional and structural contradictions of empire.