Mission to Lascars, Glasgow

Mission to Lascars or Indian Musulman Seamen

Set up in 1897 by Aziz Ahmad, the Mission to Lascars or Indian Musulman Seamen catered for Glasgow’s transient South Asian seafaring communities. In publicity materials it is described as ‘an Inter-denominational and Inter-national Christian Mission to befriend and evangelize tens of thousands of Lascars or British-Indian Sailors’. The mission was active in a wide range of port cities across the UK: initially expanding to Scottish ports in Greenock, Dundee and Leith, it later undertook work in London, Southampton, Sunderland, Hull, Manchester, Bristol and Cardiff. Ahmad also engaged in missionary training. The mission was funded by subscription and the bulk of its expenditure was linked to rental payments on the mission house, heating, clothes for lascars, travelling expenses and wages.

The Mission provided a unique and vital service in Glasgow at the time. Seafarers were invited to the Mission’s premises, provided with English lessons, taught to read and taken on excursions. The Mission looked after some 2,000 seamen annually. The last entry for the Mission in Glasgow’s Post Office Directory dates to 1921–2, after which it disappears from the official record. This is in the immediate aftermath of the 1919 riots and passing of the Aliens Restrictions Act. The Mission provided a much-needed service for Glasgow’s transient lascar community. Before the Mission’s founding, there was no special provision for South Asian seafarers beyond the local Lascar Transfer Office.