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Abdool Rhemon
Crossing-sweeper and lodging-house owner for Indian seafarers
Other names
Abdullah
Abdool Rahman
Place of birth
Date of arrival to Britain
Date of time spent in Britain
c.1830 – c.1870
About
Abdool Rhemon arrived in London in the 1830s as a lascar seaman. He initially worked as a crossing-sweeper in St Paul’s Churchyard. Having picked up some English, he was hired as a translator by the Nepalese ambassador Jung Bahadur, who was on a mission to London in 1850. With these monies, he set up his own business, running two lodging-houses for Indian seafarers in Blue Gate Fields, Shadwell, London, close to the docks in one of the most impoverished areas of London at the time. Salter alleges Rhemon ran one of ‘the most notorious opium-smoking rooms’ (p. 282). Around 1870, he enlisted as a serang (lascar overseer) and returned to India.
Fisher, Michael, Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain, 1600–1857 (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004)
Salter, Joseph, The Asiatic in England (London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, 1873)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
