An exhibition contrasting the urban legends and actual truths of London's original Chinatown is proving a surprise for many 21st century Chinese residents of the city, who had no idea that they live among the spirits of their ancestors.

The Original Chinatown: Myths and Realities, at St Anne's church, in Limehouse, East London, runs until July.

Limehouse was part of London's old docks, and with many of the city's first Chinese settlers in the 19th century being sailors, it became the heart of a well-established community for more than 100 years, before the area was devastated by bombing during World War II, and the modern Chinatown was established across the other side of the city, in Soho.

Ironically, the decline of the London docks saw the derelict industrial area completely redeveloped in the 1980s and become home to Canary Wharf, which includes much of London's finance industry, and also some of its priciest real estate, lots of it now occupied by people from China.

"Many of them who have already been here two or three years have no idea about the area's history, so when you tell them that, for decades, before Soho, this was London's Chinatown, it's a complete eye-opener," said Philip Reddaway, one of the exhibition's curators and a trustee of Care for St Anne's, the group that manages upkeep of the church, which dates back to 1730 and is on the Heritage at Risk register run by Historic England.

The exhibition has drawn significantly increased numbers of visitors to the church built by architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, who also designed several college buildings at Oxford University, and is seeking restoration funding so it can be turned into a busier community resource.

Its display is in two sections, with the first focusing on fictional depictions of London's earliest Chinese community, many of which include crude and disparaging stereotypes.

The second is about the reality of community life, which was more balanced and pleasant than the image often presented, usually by people from outside the area, who did not appreciate, or deliberately chose to ignore, the truth.

"We owe the origins of the community to the East India Company, which sent its ships, some of which had Chinese sailors as crew, back to the docks here," explained Reddaway.

"As there may not have been the need for as many crew on the journey back, they were effectively left here until they could afford a passage back, so they gravitated to be with their own people."

The Chinese were by no means the only outsiders brought into London through its docks, with sailors from many countries represented in a racially mixed transient Limehouse community, but with some of them setting up businesses, or even more significantly, marrying local women, the Chinese put down roots that other nationalities did not.

"No Chinese women came with them, so they could only marry locals, and if you're creating commercial success and building families, why would you want to move away," explained Reddaway.

While local testimony and oral history tells of a strong community and largely good neighborly relations, outsiders raised tensions by depicting the new foreign community as a threat.

The exhibition features examples of some of the insulting caricatures depicted in popular literature, and inflammatory anti-Chinese headlines from the time, many of them remarkably similar in tone to 21st-century news coverage of immigration.

"There was some crime in the area ... so the press picked on that and made a huge deal out of it, and also the mixed marriages, which for them were a big issue," Reddaway said.

"There were also occasional fights, but that was mainly to do with work — for example, if there was a job shortage in the docks, Chinese sailors might get picked on by locals — but we found in our research that there were no race riots, in spite of what was being portrayed by the national press."

Over the years, the once-distinctive Limehouse Chinese community began to fade away, with the devastating physical erasure of World War II bombing speeding up a process that was already underway.

"The docks meant this was one of the worst-hit areas in all of London by German air raids, but even before the war, slum clearance was happening, so people were being rehoused and maybe they saw Soho as a better commercial opportunity, so they might have moved," Reddaway explained.

Now, apart from a couple of community groups, the only traces of the old Chinese Limehouse are on the street map, with roads named Pekin, Canton and Nankin, and a dragon street statue, all within walking distance of the church.

The local skyline is now dominated by the towers of Canary Wharf, and with China an ever-greater player in global business, the wheel has turned full circle, as a new generation of Chinese people are drawn back to work and live in the area, in circumstances as diametrically opposed to those of the first settlers as is possible.

julian@chinadailyuk.com