Mistry Balwant Singh Birdi

Mistry Balwant Singh Birdi

Mistry Balwant Singh Birdi, who was one of the first Sikh migrants in Leeds, C.1940, a pioneer of the Leeds Punjabi community, came to Britain in 1939 from a village called Kot Badal Khan near Jallandar in Punjab. He followed in the footsteps of some of the people from his village who left to seek fortunes in England. He came by ship from Bombay to Tilbury and then stayed at the Maharajah Bhupindra Dharamsala in Shepherds Bush, London, a base for all newly arriving Indians. From London he traveled northwards, staying briefly in Wigan before moving to Bradford, working in the profitable peddling trade like most early Sikh migrants at the time selling goods door to door. During the Second World War, he stayed with other peddlers in a railway bungalow in Shipley. Pedlars traveled around the country and carried a suitcase full of haberdashery items such as ties, hairnets, hair grips, handkerchiefs, etc selling in the more rural areas.

Eventually, he bought a house in Bradford but after the war, he went back to Punjab and found himself in the middle of chaos and anarchy of partition in 1947. He decided to come back to Britain and brought with him his family including son Tirath Singh Birdi and daughter Darshan Kaur Birdi.

The family moved to Leeds in 1949 to live in Armley and their haberdashery business was selling nylon tights and stockings. After the war, the business flourished and the family was soon able to buy a car, a novelty in those days among the migrant community in Leeds. In the early 1960s, most of the trade was carried out by the Jewish community in Leeds so the family moved to live in North Leeds to facilitate their business Mistry Balwant Singh Birdi was instrumental in establishing a number of Gurdwaras in Leeds.

Both he and his son were trustees and members of the Executive Committee of the first Gurdwara on Chapeltown Road. He died in January 1984 aged 72 years old.