ABSTRACT
The seamen’s agents at Aden played a central role in the life of Arab seafarers in Britain in the early twentieth century. Arab seamen were engaged at the nearby French port of Djibouti on the Red Sea, occupied by France in 1884. Arab seafarers were engaged as firemen and trimmers on European steamers calling at the British-held port of Aden in south-west Arabia from the middle of the nineteenth century and by the end of the century their recruitment was well-established. The specialization by migrants from certain tribes in a particular type of employment is a common feature of emigration from peasant societies in the Arab world. The seamen’s agents at Aden and their network of local agents at European ports and in the tribal homelands of Yemen played a vitally important role in the migration for employment of Arab seafarers. The wakil mughtaribin or emigrant agent remains a key figure in contemporary migration for employment from the Yemen.
