The British army billeted around the country used them and John Lennon’s mum is reputed to have used one at the top of Penny Lane. For the first half of the 20th century ordinary people all over Britain were most likely to meet a Chinese person across the counter, not of a takeaway but of a Chinese laundry.
By the early 1900s there were hundreds of Chinese laundries around Britain providing both home and business to Chinese men and their families. In this programme Harry Dewar and Olga Adderton describe their family laundries in York and Birkenhead.
But, as Professor Gregor Benton recounts, Chinese laundries were the first targets whenever there was any anti-Chinese feeling. During the Cardiff riots of 1911, every one of the city’s 30 Chinese laundries was attacked.
The advent of electric washing machines led to the decline of Chinese laundries in the 1960s. Many simply converted into Chinese restaurants.
Professor Gregor Benton’s forthcoming book looks at the history and economic backdrop to Chinese laundries in Britain
The Chinese in Britain, 1800 - Present: Economy, Transnationalism, and Identity,by Gregor Benton and E. T. Gomez. Palgrave, 2007.
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YOUR COMMENTS
A very good programme: live history and very interesting/informative and educational all at the same time. Literally every town/village in Britain has a Chinese population if only for a Chinese takeaway and mostly they seem to keep to themselves so we do not usually hear much about them. I suppose the children now are at school with each other but when I was young we had no Chinese children at school – that I can remember any way. I have been to Chinatowns in London and Liverpool and the food is so different to the usual takeaway fare that is served up. Very well presented too, I might add. William Beeby, Dover - aged 54
