The Hans Crescent Strike: The Students at the Hotel
Eager to create goodwill towards Britain in its former colonies, the postwar government encouraged students from across the Empire to study in London. Housing them was a problem, as events in the summer of 1951 revealed.
One Hans Crescent is an imposing red-brick Victorian building in London’s Knightsbridge. Built in 1896, the property has played host to a number of different functions and occupants. A hotel for its first 40 years, it has also been a Crown Court, the wartime headquarters of the American Red Cross, and, latterly, luxury apartments with an underground tunnel connecting its basement to Harrods. From 1950 to 1971, though, One Hans Crescent was a student residence, the principal accommodation service in London for male students from the Empire’s colonies.
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