The Rather Shabby China Town Club

As an adjunct to both the last couple posts on Portsmouth and past occasional posts on Chinatowns in Britain and the plethora of places calling themselves variations on China and opium I happened to walk past Portsmouth’s Club China Town the other week – but I don’t think I’ll be returning for a visit. It’s closed and looks like it might have been a bit crap anyway. However, it is on the side of the rather impressive Queen’s Hotel on the Portsmouth/Southsea border designed by the architect Augustus Livesay and opened in 1861. It was slightly posher in those days, surrounded by woods, rather than Southsea High Street and had a yacht club attached. Following a fire the hotel was rebuilt in 1903 by the architect TW Cutler.

Where Club China Town came into it I’m not quite sure!

By the way Portsmouth has long had a Chinese community, bolstered in recent years I assume by more recent migrants and Chinese students at the local colleges. As a port it’s inevitable that Portsmouth’s Chinese community goes backaways. One interesting aspect of the community is that during World War One quite a few of the Chinese Labour Corp (the so-called ‘Coolie Corps’ – see here, here and here) were stationed in Portsmouth loading armaments onto ships for France. A tragedy occurred when a shell exploded during the loading and killed a large number of Chinese workers on the docks.  I had heard that there was a plaque there at one point commemorating them but not sure where and didn’t notice it while I was strolling around. If anyone knows where it is or what happened to it I’d like to know?