Sikh Matron
- Kinver
- 1985-10-13
The UK's first purpose-built mosque welcomes a huge crowd of worshippers - and newsreel cameras!
Proof that Britain's Muslim population was thriving in the 1920s, this film shows the UK's first purpose-built mosque. The Shah Jahan Mosque, on Woking's Oriental Road, was the hub for Britain's Islamic community in the early 20th century. During Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, the mosque hosted a huge, eclectic crowd, including women, visiting dignitaries and Christian converts.
In 1924, when this item was shot, Britain was home to an estimated Muslim population of 10,000, including 1000 converts. These converts were typically influential, educated, high-profile individuals such as Lord Rowland George Headley, who campaigned for further mosques to be built in Britain. Today the Woking Mosque remains an important place of worship for the local community and a significant national landmark.
From local news to feature film, through home movies and TV documentaries, this collection showcases South Asian Britons in front of and behind the camera. The contribution of colonial troops is illuminated through the earliest newsreels, while hardhitting current affairs programmes highlight the struggles faced in the 1960s, 1970s and beyond. Public information films produced for South Asian audiences feature alongside Hindi-language films made in Britain and interviews with prominent Asian-British figures. A bold wave of British Asian filmmaking in the 1990s is represented through early works by the likes of Gurinder Chadha and Asif Kapadia.