[The Guardian] The big picture: Bert Hardy’s portrait of striking Chinese seamen in 1940s Liverpool

The big picture: Bert Hardy’s portrait of striking Chinese seamen in 1940s Liverpool

The Picture Post photographer’s unpublished image, included in a new retrospective of his work, captures an equal pay protest that led to deportations

In 1942, Picture Post commissioned Bert Hardy to photograph the lives of Chinese sailors in Liverpool. About 10,000 seamen, some of whom had been settled in Liverpool’s Chinatown for decades, worked on the Blue Funnel Line or in the kitchens and laundries of Royal Navy ships during the war. The men were paid less than half the wage of their British-born crewmates.

From February to April that year, the workers made headlines when they went on strike for equal pay. Hardy’s pictures, which were never published in the magazine, illustrated those months of protest, when the sailors – branded as troublemakers – gathered in Chinatown’s hostels and boarding houses to discuss their action. Several of those images, including this photo, are included in a retrospective of Hardy’s work at the Photographers’ Gallery in London.

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