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Impressionist seascape painting of a steam-powered tug boat towing a larger sailboat, with the sun setting in the background.

‘Industrious’ Chinese and British ‘Scoundrels’: Stereotypes of Asian and British Seamen in the 1908 Issues of The Seaman

Introduction: Competition on the Labour Market

‘A Carnival of Calumny’1—that was how The Seaman, the journal of the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union, described the situation facing its readers in the early twentieth century. The journal was dominated by a campaign claiming that Chinese seamen, who earned lower wages than European seafarers, were the main reason why British seamen were being ‘driven to the workhouse’ (Fig. 1). At the same time, officials of the Shipping Federation, the union’s antagonist, pitted the ‘industrious’2 Chinese against British ‘drunkard[s] and scoundrel[s]’,3 arguing that British seamen were at a disadvantage because of their alleged poor work ethic.

Front page of 'The Seaman' magazine, with a cartoon showing a queue of Chinese seamen boarding a modern seaship, next to a line of British workers disembarking.
Fig. 1: The campaign by the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union against Chinese seamen dominated the pages of the union’s journal in the early twentieth century. ‘This Picture is the One that Mr. Cuthbert Laws Does Not Like’, The Seaman, 8/1 (June 1908), 1. The Seaman has been digitized by the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.

Much of the heated debate in The Seaman was based on generalizations about the British and the Chinese, accompanied by remarks concerning their habits, character traits, strengths, and weaknesses—particularly their abilities as maritime labourers. Depending on what served the union or the Shipping Federation better, these prejudices were employed either in favour of British seamen or against them.

Emotional discourses about wages, perceived competition on the labour market, and the characteristics of labourers are still heard today—especially ones linked to assumptions based on categories of difference such as class, gender, or race. Particularly when industries are affected by structural change that alters job profiles, anxieties, scepticism, and conservative attitudes tend to arise among workers. Since at least the era of industrialization, it has not only been humans who have shaped occupational profiles; technological developments have become equally formative, compelling workers to adjust their performance and skills to technical rather than exclusively human norms—a phenomenon most recently discussed prominently in the context of AI. Headlines such as ‘A Million Jobs in London Could be Changed by AI’ leave many people uncertain about their economic future.4 Structural changes affect not only tools, but also work itself, its prestige, and consequently the status of workers. Questions of efficiency, costs, education, training, required skills, visibility, reputation, and therefore value are continually renegotiated under changing conditions.

Structural Change in Seafaring

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British seamen were among those affected by structural changes and had to compete with foreigners for jobs. The rise of steam navigation brought significant transformations to working processes aboard ships. It is important to note, however, that although the first steamship was built in the late eighteenth century, sail and steam vessels coexisted throughout the nineteenth century—often literally in the form of hybrid vessels—due to the inefficiency of early steamships, with their ‘vast consumption of coal’.5 The final decline of sailing vessels in Britain came only with the First World War.6

Even in the limbo of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, new categories of labourers, such as firemen and trimmers, became increasingly important aboard ships. Sailors gradually became seamen: no longer distinguished by their specialized nautical skills, their job roles instead came to resemble those in the growing number of factories on land during industrialization. British shipping companies in particular often employed Asian seamen for positions in the stokehold and coal bunker.7

Nevertheless, it is essential to emphasize that multi-ethnic crews were not a phenomenon unique to the nineteenth century. Mortality and illness aboard ships, as well as the structures of the maritime economy, had long made it necessary to recruit from foreign ports. In the nineteenth century, however, the number of non-British seamen aboard British vessels increased, as did the opposition they faced from British seamen, who perceived them as cheap competition.

Photograph of the entrance to a modern, steel and glass building, with some greenery in the foreground.
Fig. 2: The Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick is the United Kingdom’s primary archive for the records of trade unions and employers’ organizations. It also preserves the records of the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union. Photo by Michelle Watzig, 2025.

Historical Research on Stereotypes

Asian seamen were not only considered less expensive than their British counterparts. As I mentioned earlier, shipowners quoted in The Seaman in 1908 described Chinese seamen as particularly ‘industrious’, while dismissing British seamen as ‘drunkard[s] and scoundrel[s]’. By contrasting Chinese and British seamen in this way, they drew on and reproduced stereotypes.

These stereotypes can be analysed with the help of the historical research on stereotypes carried out by Hans Henning Hahn. According to him, stereotypes are generalizations that provide orientation in a complex world.8 They do not represent reality, as Christin Hansen emphasizes, yet they ‘are perceived by their bearers as a form of reality’.9 This demonstrates their intrinsic power, as they can shape real-world behaviour, making them significant not only for the history of perception but also for understanding social and political action beyond mere perception.

Hahn argues that examining stereotypes generates insights on two levels: we gain information not only about the heterostereotype—that is, the image of the ‘other’ and how a particular group was perceived—but also about the autostereotype, the image of the ‘self’. Because stereotypes typically create a distinction between the ‘in-group’ and the ‘out-group’, negative heterostereotypes often stand in contrast to generally positive autostereotypes, which they automatically imply.10 This dynamic can be extended further, since third parties can also produce antagonisms by deploying stereotypes, promoting one group as exemplifying desired behaviour while portraying the other as failing to meet ideals.

The ‘Chinese Question’

Hence, my project not only examines how British and Asian crew members were represented in The Seaman, but also employs historical research on stereotypes to gain insights into broader social structures. By taking into account the mirroring effect of stereotypes, the depiction of Asian seamen allows us to also learn about both the self-image of British seamen and how they were perceived by others.

The stereotype of the Chinese as particularly industrious was seen by the British as a threat. This perception can also be traced in documents held by the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick. During my research, I discovered a file with the heading ‘Chinese Question’, which listed committees and pamphlets discussing the presence of Chinese seamen on British vessels and their status, indicating that Chinese crew members were a source of concern—so much so that the union examined the issue more closely in the early twentieth century.11 While some of the union’s actions against Asian seamen were taken behind closed doors, the initiative launched in their official organ, The Seaman, was public. For readers, however, the campaign against Chinese seafarers was not isolated from broader debates.

The stereotype of the industrious Chinese had already emerged in the late eighteenth century in colonial contexts and spread during the early nineteenth century, when the Chinese were portrayed as ‘ideal colonists’.12 James White, a labour recruitment agent for British Guiana, praised the Chinese as ‘hardworking and industrious’13—an image that, by the late nineteenth century, increasingly turned against them. From a Western perspective, they were progressively seen as a threat to white supremacy, with fears that their numbers and diligence could displace white workers or drive down wages. This narrative of the ‘yellow peril’14 was explicitly adopted in The Seaman. As illustrated in the cartoon ‘This Picture is the One that Mr. Cuthbert Laws Does Not Like’ in The Seaman (Fig. 1), the recruitment of cheap Chinese labour was seen by British seamen as the reason they were losing their jobs. Through the mirroring effect of stereotypes, the portrayal of the industrious Chinese—which was still emphasized by shipping companies around 1900 as a positive attribute—simultaneously highlighted the perceived flaws of British seamen, who were depicted as inferior and less diligent. This made the Chinese appear as a ‘yellow peril’ to British seafarers.

This perception affected the status of seamen in the labour market. As argued by William Raeburn, a shipowner and politician representing the interests of the Shipping Federation, although the wages of Chinese seamen were lower than those of their British counterparts, the effective costs of hiring Asian seafarers could be higher due to legislation or the common practice of employing multiple Asian seamen for positions that would have been occupied by a single British seaman. The reason why British shipping companies employed Chinese seamen despite their greater cost was, according to Raeburn, ‘because they are more sober and industrious’.15 Although it is uncertain to what extent this statement can be regarded as polemical discourse, the quotation illustrates the impact of stereotypes, showing that generalizations could influence—or were at least cited as legitimate grounds for—economic decisions.

Photo of an internal doorway, underneath a sign saying 'Caird Library and Archive'.
Fig. 3: The Caird Library and Archives are located inside the National Maritime Museum. The library is currently the world’s largest maritime reference library. Photo: Michelle Watzig, 2025.

The Decline of the Merchant Seamen

British merchant seamen faced multiple challenges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the shift from sail to steam vessels being only one of them. Simultaneously, the Royal Navy had been modernized—for example, with a focus on the recruitment and training of boys from the mid nineteenth century.16 At a 1901 Navy League meeting, Admiral T. S. Brand remarked on ‘how education, discipline, and naval training had transformed both the character and the ability of naval men serving in the new navy’.17 The changing image of seamen serving in the Royal Navy had consequences for the status of merchant seamen. Around 1800, service in the merchant navy had been more attractive than in the Royal Navy, but a hundred years later this perception had shifted. With the Royal Navy now able to select its recruits rather than relying on impressment, as during the Napoleonic Wars, the merchant navy increasingly gained an image as the place for those who had been rejected by the Royal Navy.

As shipowners argued that they preferred Chinese over British seamen, the positive stereotype of the Chinese simultaneously reinforced a negative stereotype of the British. On top of that, as the image of merchant seamen generally declined over the course of the nineteenth century, comparisons with foreign seamen—bearing in mind that racist ideologies and hierarchies shaped public debates in Britain at the time—made the lower status of British merchant seafarers increasingly visible, as they were seen as inferior to their Asian counterparts in some regards.

The discussion of the precarity of British merchant seamen extended further, as campaigns also addressed a key aspect of naval identity: drinking. Around 1900, the philanthropist Agnes Weston began publishing the monthly periodical Ashore and Afloat, in which she argued ‘that temperance and respectability are linked because it is Jack’s [Jack Tar, a term referring to seamen] abstinence from liquor that enables him to be a responsible husband’.18 In this way, she constructed a new ideal that broke with the predominant image of seamen as heavy drinkers, and that coincided with the Royal Navy’s efforts to improve the health and fitness of its recruits in the late nineteenth century. In many cases, however, merchant seamen were seen as degenerates who did not live up to the new ideals;19 for instance, shipowners such as William Raeburn continued to refer to the stereotype of British merchant seamen as drunkards.

External photo of a large building in brutalist style, with an ornamental pool in the foreground.
Fig. 4: At the National Archives in Kew, London, I consulted the records of the Transport Ministries to trace political frameworks and decision-making processes. Photo by Michelle Watzig, 2025.

Conclusion: What Stereotypes Can Reveal about the Status of British Seamen

While Chinese seamen were not the cause of the multiple challenges British seafarers faced during the structural transformation of their industry, public debates and comparisons based on stereotypes made the declining status of British merchant seamen visible both to the public and to the crews themselves. This perception of threat contributed to racist campaigns and actions, which varied in intensity depending on the socio-economic and political context; for example, during the First World War the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union abandoned the campaign against Chinese seamen ‘for the time being’.20

Historical research shows that, although stereotypes do not reflect the truth, they shape perceptions and influence action. British seamen felt threatened by the image of the ‘industrious Chinese’, who were seen as competitors for social and economic status. Both the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union and the Shipping Federation actively employed stereotypes which created contrasting examples of positive and negative behaviour. Wider socio-economic and political factors could also increase the weight of stereotypes. For example, the stereotype of the hard-drinking British seaman—shaped by the temperance movement and debates on social precarity—called not only his work ethic into question, but also his social role.

The study of these historical stereotypes highlights the broader relevance of the theories underpinning them: generalizations such as stereotypes can simplify complex realities, but they also risk fostering antagonisms, political camp-building, and othering, including racism. Political campaigns often target visible outcomes rather than underlying causes, pitting social groups against each other. By examining the case of British merchant seamen around 1900, we gain an insight into how structural changes shape perceptions of status, value, and respect—a lesson that remains relevant for contemporary debates, such as the growing scepticism regarding AI, which raises fears that individuals’ education, skills, and consequently their social and economic positions may decline.


Featured image: Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up, 1838. Courtesy of the National Gallery, London. Public domain.

  1. ‘A Carnival of Calumny: The Refuse of Labour’, The Seaman, 7/1 (May 1908), 2. []
  2. ‘Checking the Chinese: Some Consideration for British Sailors’, The Seaman, 4/1 (Feb. 1908), 3. []
  3. ‘A Carnival of Calumny’, 2. []
  4. Nicky Ford, ‘A Million Jobs in London Could Be Changed by AI’, BBC News, 29 Sept. 2025. []
  5. Jonathan Hyslop, ‘Steamship Empire: Asian, African and British Sailors in the Merchant Marine c.1880–1945’, Journal of Asian and African Studies, 44/1 (2009), 49–67, at 53. []
  6. Graeme Milne, Making Men in the Age of Sail: Masculinity, Memoir, and the British Merchant Seafarer, 1860–1914 (Montreal, 2024), 5. []
  7. Hyslop, ‘Steamship Empire’, 50, 56. []
  8. Hans Henning Hahn, ‘12 Thesen zur Stereotypenforschung’, in Hans Henning Hahn and Elena Mannová (eds.), Nationale Wahrnehmung und ihre Stereotypisierung: Beiträge zur Historischen Stereotypenforschung (Frankfurt, 2007), 15–24, at 15–16. []
  9. Christin Hansen, ‘Bilder vor unseren Augen—Bilder in unseren Köpfen: Stereotype und Geschichte’, in Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (ed.): Sieh dir die Menschen an! Das neusachliche Typenporträt in der Weimarer Zeit (Stuttgart, 2023), 43–50, at 47. []
  10. Hahn, ‘12 Thesen zur Stereotypenforschung’, 22–3. []
  11. National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union: ‘Chinese Question’, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick (hereafter MRC), MSS 175/3/16/4. []
  12. Onur Ulas Ince, ‘From “Chinese Colonist” to “Yellow Peril”: Capitalist Racialization in the British Empire’, American Political Science Review, 118/4 (2024), 1748–62, at 1752. []
  13. James White to Henry Barkly Esq., Governor of British Guiana, Macao, 21 June 1851, National Archives, CO 885/1/19, quoted in Neal Stan, Singapore, Chinese Migration and the Making of the British Empire, 1819–67 (Woodbridge, 2019), 141. []
  14. Ince, ‘From “Chinese Colonist” to “Yellow Peril”’, 1753. []
  15. ‘Checking the Chinese’, 3. []
  16. Mary Conley, From Jack Tar to Union Jack: Representing Naval Manhood in the British Empire, 1870–1918 (Manchester, 2019), 41. []
  17. Ibid. 136. []
  18. Ibid. 87. []
  19. Elise Juzda Smith, ‘Raising Boys for the Navy: Health, Welfare, and the British Sea Services, 1870–1905’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 76/1 (2021), 53–77, at 73. []
  20. National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union: ‘Chinese Question’, MRC, MSS 175/3/16/4. []

The text only may be used under licence Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Michelle Watzig (February 23, 2026). ‘Industrious’ Chinese and British ‘Scoundrels’: Stereotypes of Asian and British Seamen in the 1908 Issues of The Seaman. German Historical Institute London Blog. Retrieved March 7, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15qwd


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