Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders

The Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders (opened 1857) was a residential home in West India Dock Road, in the Limehouse district of London, that provided accommodation for Asian and black sailors (lascars), acted as a "repatriation centre" and was a platform for Christian missionary activity.

The home was founded after an appeal by Lieutenant Colonel R. M. Hughes, previously of the East India Company, and Joseph Salter of the London City Mission.

[5] The home served as a repatriation centre where sailors could be sought and re-employed for return journeys to the East.

[2] Joseph Salter was one missionary from the Home that gave graphic accounts of the lives of the lascars who frequently took refuge here.

[7] A Chinese community grew around the Home and the 1881 census recorded that of the 22 people who lived there, eleven were born in China, six in India or Sri Lanka, two in Arabia, two in Singapore and one in the Kru Coast of Africa.