Class, race and nation: The politics of the ‘Arab issue’ in South shields 1919–39

Abstract

This study examines the experiences through the inter‐war years of the Arab seamen based in South Shields and the community associated with them. It focuses on the way in which those experiences reflected the historic role of ‘alien seamen’ in one of the North Sea ports in which modern seagoing trade unionism was established, and pays particular attention to the issue of the ‘ Britishness’ of the Arabs and the Arab descended. This is set in the context of the role played by ‘non‐British’ white Northern European seamen on Tyne side before the First World War and the impact of that war on social relations among seamen, and in relation to political developments in housing and poor relief administration in the town in the 1930s.