A building in London where hundreds of ‘ayahs’ — Indian women who served as nannies to the British during the British Raj. Sought refuge after being abandoned by the British families who brought them to the UK, is to be commemorated with a blue plaque.
English Heritage has announced that the former site of the Ayahs’ Home for stranded South and East Asian nannies at 26 King Edward’s Road, Hackney, will get a blue plaque this year. Blue plaques placed on London buildings where there is a link between significant figures of the past and the buildings in which they lived.
Upon arrival in Britain, they often dismissed without pay and sans any formal contract, left abandoned without arrangements for their passage home. Some ended up in squalid accommodation and forced to beg for their journey home.
Historian Andrew Whitehead has visited the current building which is now a private London townhouse.
According to the Open University’s ‘Making Britain’ research project, the Ayahs’ Home founded in 1825 in Aldgate by one Mrs. Rogers. “Supported by Christian Missionaries, in 1900, the London City Mission took over the organization of the home as it moved from its premises in Aldgate to Hackney,” it states. “The home was not merely a hostel, but a venue for missionaries to try and convert the ayahs to Christianity. During the First World War, women not allowed to travel by sea and so there were many more stranded ayahs during those years,” it adds.
19th century
The Ayahs’ Home established in Hackney, east London during the 19th century by a committee of women who wanted to help stranded ayahs. Estimated that between 100 and 140 traveling ayahs visited Britain every year. The house helped them find their passage back to India with other British families.
“It then sold to a family needing the services of the ayah for their voyage to India. A servant in England costs eight times more than one in India. As a result, the East India Company employees could afford very large teams of domestic staff. Because of their sophistication, ayahs from Madras, so-called ‘Madrassi ayahs’, most highly prized,” the article states.
“They ended up often stranded high and dry in a foreign country and left to their own devices. Many of them thought of moving to Britain for a new life and after several years they dismissed and not in a strong negotiating position and may not have spoken good English. Good that the institution, which run by Christian missionaries and the ayahs, gets some public recognition. Some managed to get engaged by a family to go back to India and others were old and too frail to return,” Whitehead added.
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