Welcome back to Dead Reckoning: Lives at Sea. I am Imogen Hale. This episode is about the sailors who crewed the ships that built the British Empire and who are missing from almost every painting of them. By 1800, Indian seamen, known as lascars, made up a large share of the crews on East India Company ships. They were recruited in Calcutta and Surat through a labour contractor called a ghat serang, paid a fraction of an English sailor's wage, and when they reached London they were not allowed to stay. Many spent the winter in lodging houses in Shadwell waiting for a ship home. We follow them from the recruiting ghat to the East End and back, through the Company's own records, and we end with their descendants, who are still in East London. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.