The Chinese community is arguably one of the oldest non-White communities in Britain, and date’s as far back as the 1800’s. Early settlers, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were predominantly merchant seamen who arrived on ships bound with Chinese trade and initially settled in port areas like London, Liverpool, Bristol and Cardiff.

Between the first and Second World War’s the number of Chinese in Britain was small due largely to the Depression and the associated downturn in shipping. The first great wave of Chinese immigration came just after the Second World War and following the Japanese conquest of Hong Kong, when large numbers were unable to return to China. Throughout history, different waves of Chinese people have settled across the UK and especially in London.

The Limehouse district in the East End of London saw its first Chinatown as early as the 1880’s, when seamen escaping the cramped conditions of the East India Shipping Company settled into new surroundings. A far cry from the hundreds that resided in the UK over two centuries ago, today London alone boasts over 60,000 Oriental people of diverse origins (Chinese, Malaysian, Vietnamese, and Singaporean).