The Strangers' Home, West India Dock-Road, Limehouse

This cutting from the 5 March 1879 edition of the Illustrated London News shows an engraving of 'The Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders.' The Strangers' home, located in West India Dock Road, Limehouse, opened in 1857 and offered board and lodging to mainly transient overseas seamen temporarily residing in London whilst awaiting a return passage home. The home was founded with donations from, amongst others, the East India Company and several Indian Princes. The illustration was published to commemorate the refurbishment and enlargement of the home in 1879.

The accompanying caption reads that the home 'offers, not gratis, but for ten or fourteen shillings a week, the comforts of a well-managed lodging and boarding house to sailors, servants, and others from the Eastern world, with perfect safety against the fraud, robbery, and ill-treatment to which they would otherwise be exposed in London. More than 6,000 persons, from India, China, East and West Africa, the Malayan peninsula and islands, and those of the South Pacific, have been sheltered in this institution. Of these 1124 were casuals, and 1149 were destitute creatures, taken off the streets, or from hospitals, gaols, and workhouses.'