Lascar

Ayahs worked as domestic servants or nursemaids, while lascars worked as sailors. Their welfare could depend heavily on employers. Some ayahs were transferred to other households or abandoned when their employers no longer needed them.

Company ships carried goods such as textiles, porcelain and spices. They needed crews, and recruited Asian merchant seamen in ports including Surat and Calcutta, now Kolkata. These sailors, commonly called lascars, made the voyages that sustained trade between Britain and Asia.

Lascars were sailors recruited mainly from the Indian subcontinent. The East India Company had employed them in small numbers since the seventeenth century. Over time, the term broadened to include sailors from other backgrounds, including Chinese and East African men.