As a brand new exhibition called India’s Gateway opens its doors at Redbridge Museum, reporter Lara Keay traces the borough’s 400-year-old shared history with the subcontinent.

Once you are in Redbridge you do not need to go very far before you see just how diverse it is.

The borough is home to London’s largest Pakistani population, an even larger Indian community, as well as Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and east Africans.

But Redbridge’s cosmopolitan outlook did not happen by accident, and stretches way back to the seventeenth century.

In 1615 Sir Thomas Roe of Woodford secured a base for London’s East India Company in Surat on the Gujarati coast. 

From that point onwards, merchants and businessman travelled back and forth, consolidating links between India and London’s East End. 

After making their millions, the traders came back to England to settle in the leafy suburbs of Wanstead, Woodford and Ilford.

One of the most famous was stockholder Josiah Child, who used his East India fortune to buy Wanstead House in 1973.

As the years went on, people in Redbridge continued to work for the company until it became defunct in the late nineteenth century.

Until its independence and partition in 1947, India was still the “jewel in the crown” of the remaining British Empire and more of a key ally than a subordinate territory.

When World War I broke out in 1914 and Britain found itself incredibly short on soldiers, they recruited over a million Indians to make up the numbers.

Sailing directly from Mumbai or Karachi, Indian soldiers fought alongside those from Redbridge in Belgium, Egypt and modern day Iraq. 

Historian Gerard Greene says although there is less local archive material on India’s contribution to World War II, they were “undoubtedly just as crucial” in helping soldiers from Redbridge win in 1945.

But it was not until after the war and the 1947 partition that Redbridge’s first major wave of migration arrived, he explains.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, workers moved from Gujarat and Bombay to east African countries like Uganda and Tanzania to help the British with their infrastructure projects.

But although the Gujarati population in particular became very settled in east Africa, when their independence came, so did their marching orders.

Either expelled or made to feel unwelcome, the east African Indians then travelled to London, where a lot of them found homes in Redbridge.

Mr Greene said: “A lot of Gujaratis came to the East End because it was their first port of call.

“Sometimes they would find places to live in Newham, before heading over to Redbridge later on.

“There they often set up corner shop businesses or worked in factories to make a living.

“Now Redbridge’s south Asian community has been here for nearly 60 years, their contributions to the borough are enormous and make up a large part of day-to-day life.”

Today around 35 per cent of people who live in Redbridge can trace their roots to the subcontinent in some form.

Historian and photographer Tim Smith, whose photos feature in India’s Gateway: Gujarat, Mumbai & Britain, says he hopes the exhibition will reflect the richness of the British Indian experience.

He said: “I hope it gives an insight into how our shared histories have put a little of India in every Brit and how it has left a bit of Britain in India too.”

The exhibition will run until January 18 2017 at Redbridge Museum in Ilford, with an introductory talk by photographer Tim Smith at 6pm on October 25. 

For more information, see the Redbridge Council website.