Lascars, the Thames Police Court and the Old Bailey: crime on the high seas and the London courts, 1852–8

Abstract

Lascars, or Asian sailors, were no strangers to legal entanglements in London, where thousands of them were stranded in the early nineteenth century. However, in the 1850s, the lascar crews of five ships prosecuted European officers and seamen for crimes committed at sea. This study draws upon documentation for these cases at every step of the legal process, exploring how lascars used London's mid-Victorian criminal justice system, and how institutions such as the Thames Police Court and the Old Bailey handled these unusual, complex cases. These court cases mark a watershed point in lascar history, linking the study of Asian mariners of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with studies of the later steamship era.