Lunchtime Talk: Sheffield’s Pioneering South Asian Settlers, 1917-1947

South Asian settlement in the Sheffield area is widely understood to have begun during the 1950s, after Partition and the independence of India and Pakistan from the British Empire. However, for the past twelve years, Dr David Holland has researched an earlier period of South Asian migration to the area, which began in earnest over one hundred years ago. The resulting history is both surprising and inspiring.  

 Join David as he explores the stories of the South Asian newcomers who came to work in the area’s steelworks, pits and heavy industries, and the lives, friendships and families they built with native Sheffielders.  

The talk will appeal to those interested in local, social, family, and migration histories and will draw from David’s recent book Imperial Heartland (Cambridge University Press, 2023). 

Image: Rasool and Elsie Khan with their children, Attercliffe, 1931. Reproduced by kind permission of Glenda Munro. 

Host or Publisher Museums Sheffield