England, UK: 'Breaking Bulk on Board a Tea Ship'. Unloading the 'Louden Castle' from Hankow (Hankou), Limehouse Docks, Illustrated London News, 1877

Limehouse, in Stepney, was London's first Chinatown. The Chinese began settling in Limehouse before 1850, arriving as seamen or ship's launderers. By 1890 sailors from Shanghai were colonizing Pennyfields, Amoy Place and Ming Street, while those from Guangzhou (Canton) and southern China chose Gill Street and Limehouse Causeway, slightly further west.

From the 1890s the Chinese community in the East End grew in size and spread eastwards, from the original settlement in Limehouse Causeway, into Pennyfields. The area provided for the Lascar, Chinese and Japanese sailors working the Oriental routes into the Port of London.

The main attractions for these men were the opium dens, hidden behind shops in Limehouse and Poplar, and also the availability of prostitutes, Chinese grocers, restaurants and seamen's lodging-houses. Hostility from British sailors and the inability of many Chinese to speak English fostered a distinct racial segregation and concentrated more and more Chinese into Limehouse.

From the 1970s, London's Chinatown was increasingly established further to the west, in Soho, centred on Gerrard Street.

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