CMI sunday activities (Real Audio)

The Waddilov Trust provided only part of the cost. The rest was raised by Chunchie himself from annual subscriptions and donations from fellow Methodists around the country to meet the £750 per annum running costs. Chunchie put to good use his ability to give hard-hitting speeches about the plight of the coloured peoples in the East End, and mixed this with his own personal story of being converted from Mohammedan [sic] Mosque to the Christian Church. He attracted large crowds but although now a Christian himself, he puzzled Christian England where black and Asian peoples were discriminated against and where Christians at home did not practise what they were preaching abroad.

Chunchie’s work was praised and his popularity grew even when the Mission hierarchy cooled towards him in the early thirties. King Sobouza of Swaziland on a visit to London applauded Chunchie’s efforts. When Chunchie’s work for the Mission was wound up, a petition was presented to Mission House in protest.

Their were some critics: members of the East End branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), founded by Marcus Garvey in the USA, accused Chunchie of being patronising to back people, and using the Christian preaching as "the dope" which had been responsible for the exploitation and oppression of black people. Chunchie regarded the separate institutions as a solution to the racism black and Asian people faced.

Closure of The Coloured Men's Institute

As the road-widening scheme closed the Coloured Men’s Institute, so Chunchie moved to Lewisham, where Muriel still is some 70 years on.

Muriel's Lewisham, Chunchie's Greenwich links (Real Audio)

The Methodist organisation frowned upon Chunchie’s brand and method of ministering, and he was sidelined as grants were made available to four other Methodist missions in Stepney, Poplar and Canning Town for their work among foreign [European sailors] residents. Mission House offered Chunchie a post at Medak in Hyderabad as a gymnastics instructor to 300 Indian youngsters, taking into account his boxing and cricketing skills (he played for Essex), or a year’s Bible study at Cliffe College in Manchester. Declining both these offers, Chunchie remained committed to building a home for "coloured" people, and in August in 1932, Chunchie parted ways with Mission House. His speaking engagements meant that he was in great demand and helped him raise his own funds.

The Reverand W.J. Noble who had worked in Ceylon said in his book, Yarns of Ceylon, of Chunchie that as a schoolboy and a devout Muslim, he and his friends had played "football" with the Bible. This was however an exaggeration since Christians were respected as people of the Book by Muslims. But such reports became common currency and were even repeated in some obituaries.

New Coloured Men's Institute

The death of Chunchie’s father meant that his father’s will was helping to pay for his continuing work for the welfare of the black and Asian poor of East London. Between 1933 and his death in 1953, with a group of dedicated supporters, Chunchie worked full-time to build a new Coloured Men’s Institute and set up a multiracial council, of which he was superintendent and general secretary. Many well-known figures such as Dr Harold Moody, President of the League of Coloured Peoples, became members of this council. Basil Skinner of Blackheath acted as treasurer and Chunchie’s wife, Mabel, carried out work among the women and children.

By 1935 the Old Ship Inn in Victoria Dock Road had been purchased for £367 and it was proposed to convert it into an institute. Chunchie’s home, Kandy, in Lewisham served as a base and the Presbyterian Church in Dock Road as a centre for its activities, since the money was never raised for the Old Ship’s conversion. By 1933, it was calculated that that 252 seamen had received bed and breakfast, by 1935, the number had risen to 650 and by 1937, to 900 who had benefited through the setting up of Chunchie's Coloured Men's Institute.

Daytrips and New Year Gatherings

As the economic depression on the docks took a hold so the numbers of families who were given Christmas dinners rose so that by 1937 there were 127. Families from the black and Asian communities, who attended, were entertained by the CMI committee to a tea and a concert, and a variety of gifts were distributed among adults and children. In addition to this, clothes, coal, boots and shoes and even money were offered to needy families throughout the year.

Coloured People's New Year Party, organised by Pastor Chunchie and the officers of the Coloured Men's Institute at Barking Road Methodist Church, Canning Town, East London - 1933.

The New Year gatherings by 1937 had risen to around 500. On top of this, the annual summer outings to the seaside began with a two-week holiday for two mothers and six children in 1933 and by 1937 some 400 men, women and children were being taken by motor-car to a day out at the seaside. Bombed out and evacuated families during the Second World War also received help through the Coloured Men's Institute and the growing number of students in London from the colonies were also supported. Representatives from students' associations like the Ceylonese Students' Union, the Gold Coast Students' Association, the Indian Students' Union and the West African Students' Union also attended the CMI annual New Year parties. Others also attended the Chunchie home in Lewisham. Chunchie had become a welcome guest at annual social events organised by various student groups.

Chunchie - the sportsman

During Chunchie's earlier years in London, he played cricket for Essex. Black and Asian cricketers were not unknown in Britain. An Indian Prince, Ranjitsinhji (known as Ranji) had played regularly for Sussex and England between 1895 and 1904. Chunchie's contemporary in the 1920s and 1930s was Learie Constantine from the West Indies who played in the Lancashire League. Although Chunchie did not reach the same heights, he was considered a respectable player.

Second World War

During the Second World War Chunchie worked as a member of a Voluntary Fire Fighting Party in Lewisham. Muriel recalls the German bombing raids.

Muriel during bombing in Lewisham (Real Audio)

So why was Chunchie out looking for Muriel and why was Mabel, Muriel's mother, ing at a German plane flying over Lewisham?

Mother's memories of German plane (Real Audio)

The effect of Chunchie's work

There were no accurate records kept of the number of black and Asian peoples in the East End and the 1921 Census was not a reliable guide as it used the country of birth as its index, and would have included whites born in the colonies and the empire. Other records were similarly not very accurate. Based on figures from the National Registration and A.R.P. (Air Raid Protection) authorities, the number of people from India, Africa and the West Indies was estimated at 400. Another earlier estimate from Nancie Sharpe's survey, Report on the Negro Population in London and Cardiff, conducted in the mid-1930s, concentrated largely on the black population of African descent.

Nancie Sharpe's Survey

In this survey, the greatest concentration was shown to be in the Stepney and Canning Town area of London. She estimated that there were 250 to 300 working class families with African or West Indian heads. The Indian population in the East End was estimated to be between two to three thousand, including around 100 children. Nancie Sharpe's accompanying report revealed a grim picture of the poverty and suffering that the majority of these people faced. At this time, the weekly wage would have been less than £2.75. This forced many into overcrowded accommodation.

Periods of unemployment meant their health suffered through malnutrition. Racial harassment among private householders became widespread. Sharpe's report concluded that the condition these people lived in was a very poor reflection on the British society.

The difference made by the Coloured Men's Institute

So without the CMI's work, the lives of many black and Asian people during the year of the depression and the Second World War would have been bleaker still. Evidence of the impact that the CMI made on individual lives is captured in the many letters of gratitude, some reproduced in the annual reports of the CMI. Appreciation for items ranging from coal tickets to clothing, toys and books to boots and shoes and money was widespread.

The opening of the new Methodist Coloured People's Settlement in 1937 was seen as an attempt to undercut Chunchie's work, and many protested to Mission House. W.B. van Lare of the Gold Coast Students' Association spoke in glowing terms of Chunchie's established work among the "coloured" peoples and described the gathering at Chunchie's Lewisham home:

Often . . . we meet English people of a class different from that which one meets in the street, and but for this privilege, some of us would have gone back home with a poor impression of England and Christianity.

What can Muriel remember of her father's gatherings at the family house in Lewisham?

Social gatherings in Lewisham (Real Audio)

Finances

The CMI's resources were largely dependent on Chunchie's own fund-raising stamina. From Saturday to Tuesday Chunchie would be away around Britain, speaking at meetings and anniversaries to raise funds for not just the Coloured Men's Institute, but for other churches as well. The administration, spiritual and social work along with the collection of parcels of food and clothing from well-wishers, fell on Chunchie, his wife and a band of loyal helpers. The CMI however ran into serious financial difficulties with its first deficit of £97 appearing as early as 1935 and rising to £221 in 1936. Chunchie often ended up covering the deficits by advancing his money from his own bank account. By 1950, the CMI deficit had grown to £665.

Chunchie's death

The hard work and unstable finances of the CMI led to Chunchie's health breaking down. After a short illness, he died in June 1953, aged 67. Muriel remembers the mark of respect paid to her father from many people, including local shop-keepers along Lee High Road.

Chunchie's funeral & teachings (Real Audio)

He is buried in Hither Green Cemetery in Lewisham. What does Muriel regret not finding out from her father before his death?

Chunchie's death & change of faith (Real Audio)

The Institute did not survive him as it was heavily dependent on his fundraising. It left a bank balance of £37.31 and a debt to Chunchie of £197.58.

Chunchie has been described as conservative in his fight against racism, embracing Christian fellowship and brotherhood. A member of the CMI council, Shoran Singha, recalled wanting to see the CMI developing into a centre which would tackle cases of racial injustice, for example against the shipping companies that many of the black and Asian sailors had worked for. There is no evidence to suggest that Chunchie took up such cases, in contrast to men like Surat Alley of Stepney, a representative of the All India Seamen's Federation, who campaigned during the inter-war years for better wages and conditions on behalf of Indian sailors.

Chunchie may have, however, supported and attended such meetings organised by movements such as the Ceylon Sama Samaja Party, or the India League or the League Against Imperialism.

As a member of the Royal Empire Society, he was by no means the only black man elected. He was proposed by James A. Barbour James who was a well-known member of the black elite.

In 1941 Chunchie objected to the inclusion of the "Freedom of Religion" clause in the National Council for Civil Liberties' resolutions at the Colonial Empire Conference. He felt that the resolution suggested a "suppression of Religion". He saw that religion allowed for "absolute free assembly and expression" and that freedom of religion already existed throughout the British Empire.

Kamal Chunchie will be best remembered as a welfare and social worker for a period of 30 years among the Black peoples of East London.

Source: Muriel Simpson and Rozina Visram's Kamal A. Chunchie of the Coloured Men's Institute: The Man and the Legend

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