A History of Southall

By oliver New

Southall has seen many changes and struggles over the years. Thousands of years ago, Southall was swampy. Remains of mammoths have been found in 3 locations along with evidence of stone age hunters. So it has changed!

Skipping past the Romans, the influx of Angle and Saxon migrants and the Middle Ages, the area had become farmland. In 1800 there were just three small villages with 700 people and some horses - though we did have a market.

Big changes were coming. The canal and then the railway brought industrialisation. The first big industry was brickfields and our Southall bricks helped build London. It was hard work in the brickfields though, badly paid and casual. If the ground froze, there was no work and people just starved.

Margarine Factory

The key transition to an industrial town came with the opening of a vast margarine factory in 1893. Founded by Danish entrepreneur Rasmus Otto Monsted, it had a weekly output of 700 tons of margarine, exported right across Europe. So, people migrated to work in Southall from rural areas and cheap houses were built for them (one of which I live in today). Other factories opened up, bringing more workers from diverse areas. As jobs became scarcer in the 1930s, some incoming migrants faced resentment, including the Welsh.

Later there were jobs of course, with the huge post war industrial expansion, and people from South Asia and the Caribbean were encouraged to come here. An army officer arranged for his former Punjabi Sikh soldiers to come and work in the horrible low-paid Woolfs rubber factory and Southall became a focus for Punjabi workers.

These new migrants had to deal with racism and discrimination – for example children were bussed to schools outside Southall to keep their numbers down. Others were denied housing.

Blair Peach

Self-organised groups like the Indian Workers Association had started up. Later, in the 70s, the second generation of youth refused to accept racism. The killing of Gurdip Chaggar in 1976 was praised by members of the National Front, which 3 years later arranged a provocative ‘public’ meeting in Southall Town Hall. Ignoring petitions and protests, the authorities insisted it go ahead. On the day, shops and factories closed as residents united for a peaceful sit-down protest in their own streets. This was brutally broken up by hundreds of police with horses. They killed Blair Peach, truncheoned indiscriminately and arrested 700 people. Only years of campaigning and several inquiries exposed the reality of these events to people outside the area. Nevertheless, the lesson was clear – Southall would not leave racism unchallenged.

Tower Block City

With the advent of Crossrail, Southall is becoming a Tower Block City, with massive developments on former industrial land near the station. The tens of thousands of new flats are obviously for commuters to live in small apartments without parking. A dormitory town for them, fat profits for property developers, but little use to an overcrowded area where multi-occupancy and ‘beds in sheds’ are common.

Today Southall elects politicians from the Asian ‘desi’ communities and campaigning goes on: Southall Town Hall continues to be a secular community venue, the black music venue ‘Tudor Rose’ has been saved from demolition by the developers and Clean Air campaign is challenging the disturbance of polluted land by developers on the Gas Works. It’s still a great town.