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Ghulam Sarwar Khan Chohan
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Served in the British Army during the Second World War and worked for the Middlesbrough-based bridge manufacturer Dorman Long
Place of birth
Date of arrival to Britain
Place of death
Middlesbrough
Date of time spent in Britain
1937–91
About
Ghulam Sarwar Khan Chohan joined his paternal cousin, hakim and eye specialist Chirag Din Chohan, in Middlesbrough in 1937. Some two years later, he served in an Indian brigade of the British Army which was based in Britain during the Second World War. When the war ended, he worked for the Middlesbrough-based steel producer and bridge manufacturer Dorman Long in the wire works section. In turn, he supported local South Asian men who were seeking employment at Dorman Long. He remained at the company until his retirement at age 65.
In 1947 Chohan returned to the newly created Pakistan for an arranged marriage to 16-year-old Nafees Akhtar. It is thought that Nafees, who arrived in the UK in 1949, was the first Pakistani woman to settle in Middlesbrough. The couple first lived on Kensington Road, in a property owned by Chirag Din Chohan. They later moved into their own home at 185 Grange Road. Ghulam and Nafees rented out several rooms of their large home to lodgers, from which they were able to earn an income. The couple had four children, Bari, Shahadha, Araf and Hamed.
Chohan died on 24 December 1991.
Barley, Sophie, 'Tributes to One of Area's First Asian Women', Evening Gazette (23 June 2010)
Hussain, Khadim, Going for a Curry? A Social and Culinary History (Middlesbrough: Ek Zuban, 2006)
Media Cultured, 'The Chohan Family: East to North East', https://mediacultured.org/the-east-to-north-east-exhibition/
C900/01572, Bari Chohan interviewed by Neil Gardner (1999), Millennium Memory Bank, British Library, St Pancras
Gilder, Terry, ‘A Passage from India: "You are so kind"’, Remember When, Evening Gazette (16 August 1997)
One Suitcase Project, Tariq Usman, 11 October 2022, interview by Miki Rogers, Teesside Archives, Middlesbrough
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
