FEBRUARY 2018

In 1846 Cuffay was one of London’s three
delegates to the land conference and, together with
another tailor, James Knight, he was appointed
auditor to the National Land Company which soon
had 600 branches all over the country. He received
praise for the way in which he conducted this role:
“When hundreds of working men elected this man
to audit the accounts of their benefit society, they
did so in the full belief of his trustworthiness,
and he never gave them reason to repent of their
choice. Cuffay’s sobriety and ever active spirit marked
him for a very useful man; he cheerfully fulfilled the
arduous duties devolved upon him.”
After the failure of the third Chartist petition
Cuffay was accused of promoting an armed uprising,
He was arrested, condemned to transportation, and
died in poverty in a Tasmanian workhouse.
Britain began trading with China in the 17th century
and a small community of Chinese sailors grew up
around Limehouse in East London, expanding over
the next two centuries, with Chinese communities
also taking root in Liverpool, Swansea, Cardiff
and elsewhere.
Chinese benevolent associations, the earliest of
which was the Chee Kung Tong, formed in Liverpool
in the 1880s, played an important role in looking
after the interests of their members, arranging
burials, and assisting in cases of exploitation. In
the early 20th century the Chinese communities
faced growing hostility, with crowds of angry British
seamen, opposed to the cheaper Chinese crews,
preventing Chinese seamen from signing on ships.
New benefit associations were formed, including
the Hui Tong Association, set up in 1906 or 1907 in
Poplar and Liverpool. Its stated aims were to organise
mutual aid, improve Chinese living standards in
Britain, fight discrimination, overcome disunity, and
adjudicate in disputes between members, although
allegedly it also engaged in criminal activity.
In 1916 the Zhong Shan Mutual Aid Workers Club
was established in Liverpool, later moving to East
London, and offering a meeting place free from
British ridicule and humiliation. It aimed to unite
the overseas Chinese in Britain, to improve their
working conditions and to look after their welfare.
Eventually the Zhong Shan Mutual Aid Workers Club
moved to Soho in the West End, showing films and
arranging classes, and organising the Chinese New
Year celebrations in Gerrard Street.
By 1930 there were over 30 Chinese shops and
restaurants in Limehouse, including several
tobacconists and lodging houses. Chinese
restaurants and cafés were the main social hub of
the local community, providing a venue in which to
conduct business, and serving secondary functions
as informal post offices and banks.
Clan associations had been set up in the UK from
the 1880s, with their roots in a particular family
lineage or district of China, but from 1963 when there
was large scale immigration from Hong Kong, these
took on a bigger role. The Cheung Clansmen Charity
Association dominated the Chinese restaurant
sector, leading the way in the colonisation of Gerrard
Street, and others including the Man and Pang
clan associations also accumulated property and
business interests.
Between 1955 and 1962 over 480,000
Commonwealth citizens came to live in Britain.
Tighter immigration controls were then imposed,
with an average of 75,000 immigrants per year
in the 1960s and 72,000 per year in the 1970s,
particularly from the West Indies, India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh, as well as Asian refugees from East
Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.
At first, housing conditions were grim, as
immigrants had to live in Britain for three years
before being allowed to join a waiting list for local
authority housing. During this time, as indeed in the
decades to follow, immigrants were often forced to
endure slum conditions in badly maintained private
rented accommodation owned by rogue landlords.
From 1955, however, housing associations were
set up to help immigrants. The first were in Leeds,
followed by Birmingham, Nottingham and London.
In the late 1980s, following riots in Brixton, Toxteth
and elsewhere, some 40 housing associations led by
people from black and ethnic minority communities
were established with funding support from
government, with the aim of providing affordable
housing for African-Caribbean, Vietnamese, Chinese
and Asian populations, and thereby addressing
social inequality.
Some of these associations grew rapidly. In 1979
The Asra Project (meaning shelter in Hindi and
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