The Chief Officer, some Petty Officers and Lascars in a break from boat drill onboard P&O ship Stathnayer, 1933–36. Repro ID: N47905 ©National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, LondonThe East India Company first employed Asian seamen known as Lascars, in the 17th century. The term is believed to derive from the Persian lashkar, meaning an army, a camp or a band of followers. The first European use of the word dates back to the Portuguese employment of Asian seamen in the early 1500s. Lascars were both recruited to serve on European ships and paid through a Ghat Sarhang, an Indian agent. This term comes from the Hindi word ghat, meaning landing place, set of bathing steps, and mountain pass, and the Persian word sarhang, meaning commander or overseer.

Lascars onboard Dunera. Repro ID: C8435 ©National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, LondonThe articles for the East Indiaman, Tryal, in 1746 recorded that the Lascar crew would be paid a fixed monthly wage for the voyage from India to London. When in London, they were to get bounty money and maintenance while waiting for a return passage to their port of origin.

In practice, the East India Company simply abandoned Lascars once they were in London, and the Merchant Shipping Act of 1823 made the Company legally responsible for their upkeep in England. In 1855, in an attempt to provide for destitute foreign seamen, the Church Missionary Society founded the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders in London.