Chinatown, Liverpool
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Chinatown in Liverpool in the Merseyside area is on Duke Street and is home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe. The arch located at the gateway is also the largest of its kind outside of China. It has been under regeneration. 2005 estimates state 1.5% of Liverpool's population as being of Chinese descent[1].
The first presence of Chinese people in Liverpool dated back to the early 19th century, with the main influx arriving at the end of the 19th century. This was in part due to the Alfred Holt and Company establishing the first commercial shipping line to focus on the then China trade. From the 1890s onwards, small numbers of Chinese began to set up businesses catering to the Chinese sailors working on Holt's lines and others. Some of these men married working class British women, resulting in a number of British-born Eurasian Chinese being born during World War II in Liverpool. At the beginning of the War, there were up to 20,000 Chinese mariners in the city. In 1942, there was a strike for rights and pay equal to that of white mariners. The strike had lasted for 4 months. For the duration of the War these men were labelled as "troublemakers" by the shipowners and the British Government. At the end of the conflict, they were forbidden shore jobs, their pay was cut by two-thirds and they were offered only one-way voyages back to China. Hundreds of men were forced to leave their families, with many of their Eurasian children continuing to live in and around Liverpool's Chinatown to this day.[2]
.svg/22px-Flag_of_Belgium_(civil).svg.png){kind=small}
