Samuel Chinque

Samuel Chinque or Sam Chen (; 22 November 190827 November 2004) was a British Chinese writer, publisher, social and political activist, and prominent trade unionist in the United Kingdom. The agency's headquarters in London's Soho area occupied one of the first Chinese organisations in what was later to become London's Chinatown. After arriving in the United Kingdom as a seafarer at Liverpool Docks in 1929, he become a labour leader and supporter of the radical movement. He was known at the time as Sam Chen, leader of Liverpool Chinese seafarers. He later became the principal activist in the Save China campaign during the Japanese occupation of China (19371945) and a prominent ally to both the UK and China. He is regarded as a key figure in the British Trade Union Movement and in the emergence of a British East and South East Asian Activist Movement.

Early life and settlement in the United Kingdom Chinque was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 22 November 1908, where his parents owned stores. In 1916, when he was 8 years old, Chinque's mother died In 1926, at the age of 18, Chinque became a merchant seaman, a job which involved hard manual labour and low pay.

This work soon brought him to the United Kingdom, where he eventually settled in the port city of Liverpool in 1929,

Records which are currently held in the London Metropolitan Archives and the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick have revealed that sailors in Liverpool were often paid 30% less if they were of Chinese appearance, whilst their white, European colleagues were not only paid higher wages, but they also benefited from a War Bonus for working in dangerous zones, if they were British.

In 1942, Chinese sailors working in the Liverpool Docks took part in a strike demanding higher pay and bonuses for working in dangerous zones, and won.

In 1950, his activism lead to Xinhua official sponsorship of the first May Day demonstrations in London, a celebration of working class movements and struggle. The event came about following the formation of a new committee chaired by John Platts-Mills, Arthur Clegg, and Reginald Bridgeman, that paved the way for the later established Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding. Records from these events, up until 1955 name a "Sam Ching" as well as a "Sam Chen," as the principle contact between the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Ambassadors of China. Both of these names have been assumed by historians to be in reference to Chinque.

In 1963, during the rising of tensions between the communist states of Russia and new China in the Sino-Soviet split, he was ousted by the Communist Party of Great Britain when he refused to provide his endorsement of the party's shift towards a new internationalist rhetoric, which he had suspected was a cover for Russia's nationalist agenda, and as such was perceived to be following the anti-Chinese position of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, who believed that China should only have the right to only lay claim over territories which were south of the Great Wall of China. Following the withdrawal of his membership to the Communist Part of Great Britain, he joined the Chinese Communist Party.

Chinque died at home in 2004 in the company of his wife, Kin Yung, and their daughter, Chloe Chinque.

Legacy In 2008, following his death in 2004, a substantial collection of his personal papers including issues of the Xinhua weekly news sheets, photographs, letters, and documents for the Chinese Mutual Aid Association, along with his publications, official papers, writings, and poems were acquired by the London Metropolitan Archives. This archive was formed as part of a National Lottery Heritage Fund project led by the Chinese National Healthy Living Centre called the "Footprints of the Dragon."