Bangladeshi and Black Country – intertwined identities

This South Asian Heritage Month, Black Country Living Museum is celebrating the wide range of communities that have moved from South Asia to the Black Country. On Saturday 20 July, we hosted Pravās Takeover Day with Jaivant Patel Company, highlighting the region’s Gujarati heritage, and recently we highlighted the development of Punjabi historic characters on site. In this blog post we are outlining another community that we want to celebrate with the collaboration of local voices.

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Mohammed Abdul Hakim was a well-known and well-loved figure in Wednesbury, from his arrival from Bangladesh in 1957, to his death in 2016. He worked for over three decades at J.H. Lavender Aluminium Foundry (Lavender’s) in West Bromwich, and became a pillar of the Bangladeshi community in the Black Country.

In March 2024, we opened our recreation of Lavender’s, and we will soon be introducing Mohammed as a historic character to help highlight the history of Bangladeshis in the Black Country. His story is one of many Black Country Bangladeshi stories, and it is our ambition to collect and celebrate the full range of Bangladeshi experiences in our region.

Bengal to Bangladesh

Bangladesh gained independence in 1971 and has had a complex recent past, but its history helps explain why many Bangladeshis have made the Black Country their home.

The country that is now Bangladesh is part of the wider region of Bengal, in the Eastern part of South Asia. Until it was conquered and colonised by the British East India Company in 1757, Bengal was the richest region in the world, trading silks, cotton and food with the world, and became the jewel in the British Empire’s crown.

Bengal was divided, in 1905, into the wealthier, industrialised, Hindu-majority West Bengal, and the poorer, agricultural, Muslim-majority East Bengal.

In 1947, decades of campaigning for independence came to fruition and British India was split into two new states: India and Pakistan. The latter consisted of two separate parts: one to the North-West of India, home to most of the industry, the wealthy elites and the capital city; and East Bengal (renamed East Pakistan), with a larger population in a much smaller area, which immediately became the poor relation in the partnership.

This relationship only worsened in the following years. While East Pakistan produced most of the new nation’s exports (predominantly jute), West Pakistan received more investment in education, transport, industry and communications, and opportunities for emigration were restricted to West Pakistanis. East Pakistan’s Bengali culture was even regarded as inferior, with language becoming a particular point of conflict.

In November 1947, Pakistan’s leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, announced that the primary language of state and education would be Urdu. Urdu was the first language of only around three per cent of the population but was used by Pakistan’s ruling elite in government and legal settings.

Bengali – the mother tongue of almost everyone in East Pakistan, and more than half the population of Pakistan as a whole – was relegated to a lower status. This caused an outcry in East Pakistan, and the campaign for language equality developed into a campaign for greater rights.

A new East Pakistani political party, the Awami League, entered power in 1956, as part of a coalition, and immediately set about improving conditions for East Pakistanis, including allowing them to apply for visas and thus to study or work abroad.

This period of reform was ended by a military coup in 1958, lasting until a brutal civil war in 1971 when East Pakistan won its independence. The new state of Bangladesh (meaning “Bengali country”) was recognised in December 1971.

Bangladeshis in the Black Country

A small Bengali community developed in the West Midlands from the Second World War. Many had been ‘lascars’ – manual workers on Merchant Navy ships from the region of Sylhet, who settled first in port cities, then moved inland.

Many set up new businesses including market stalls or “Indian” restaurants, and a few married English wives. Ajore Ali, for instance, ran a market stall in Birmingham for many years; he had moved there early in the war and married Dorothy Simkin of Marshall Street, Smethwick, in 1941.

The short period of liberalisation in the mid-1950s allowed some East Pakistanis an opportunity to work in Britain. People from across South Asia had moved to the Black Country after the Second World War, including Punjabis, Gujaratis, and Kashmiris, often working in foundries or public transport and living frugal lifestyles to enable them to send money home to their families.

Bengali communities grew around factories willing to employ them – the huge Birmid foundry in Smethwick, for instance, as well as Lavender’s.

Mohammed was one of those who took their opportunity in 1957. He followed his brother, Abdul Raqib Choudhury, who had moved the previous year.

They both found work at Lavender’s: Abdul did not stay in industry long (moving to West Bromwich Corporation Transport), but Mohammed stayed for 34 years, working up from general labourer to skilled high-pressure diecaster.

Like many of his compatriots he only ever worked nights and learnt English there with a thick Black Country accent. He provided a home for other Bangladeshis moving to Wednesbury, so living conditions were often cramped, but they all learnt to cook and eat together.

Mohammed even took up the traditional Black Country hobby of keeping chickens, so that he could have halal meat to eat. He also used his background as an Islamic scholar to host prayers in his home, and later helped build Wednesbury’s first mosque as a retirement project!

In 1966, Mohammed returned to East Pakistan to marry; Lavender’s held his job for him, and his wife and children later joined him. Other children were born in Wednesbury too, joining the growing British-Bangladeshi community there.

After Bangladesh’s independence immigration became easier, and families were reunited here. Britain’s Bangladeshi community grew from just 6,000 in 1961 to almost 650,000 in 2021, with 20,000 in the Black Country.

Mohammed’s life is typical of many others who moved from Bangladesh to the Black Country in the last 80 years, and whose stories we are looking forward to exploring at the museum.

Your stories

Stories like Mohammed’s are true celebrations of the rich diversity and success of the Black Country’s modern history. We’d love to hear more stories of families from these communities and how your Bengali or Bangladeshi heritage intertwines with your Black Country identity.

If you would be interested in talking to us about your experiences, our team would love to hear from you. You can get in touch via email at collections@bclm.com.

Find out more

• The recent anniversary of Bangladesh’s fight for independence was marked by a play and a book, available from Purbanat CIC theatre company: Simon Briercliffe, 50 years of Bangla Brummies (Purbanat CIC, 2023)
• Yousuf Choudhury spent many years collecting stories across the West Midlands to tell the story of his community: From Bangladesh To Birmingham: The History of Bangladeshis In Birmingham (Birmingham Library, 2001, with Peter Drake)
• Bangla Stories is a useful set of resources on the Bangladeshi diaspora.