migrant groups

Normans

Normans

1066

Why did they come?

• Supporting William of Normandy in conquest of 1066

• Land and wealth had been promised to nobles who joined William’s invasion force

Were they welcomed?

• Rebellions brutally suppressed in Harrying of the North

• Silvatici (green men) fought in the forest to resist occupation

• Herward launched guerilla operations in the Fens that led to Normans re-introducing murdrum (collective fines if murderers were not caught within five days)

What impact did they have?

• Many changes - feudal system, Doomsday book, surnames, abolition of slavery, Old French, control of the Church, land redistribution

Jews

1070s

Why did they come?

• William invited Jews because they could read, write and do accounts, when many were illiterate

• Christians could not money lend, so Jews were needed so Kings could borrow money to build castles and cathedrals, and finance their wars

Were they welcomed?

• Henry I gave them Charter of Liberties, which allowed Jews protection in castles, but they had to pay higher taxes in return

• Jews had to pass these costs in through higher rates of interest, which caused resentment from Christians

• Crusades of 1095 increased anti-Semitism, as Jews were labelled non-believers

• Spreading of ‘Blood Libel’ after 1144 increased violence towards Jews

• York Massacre in 1190, with anti-Semitic laws increasing until all Jews expelled in 1290

What impact did they have?

• Jewish money crucial to buildings like Norwich Cathedral

• One of the earliest examples of ethnic cleansing in England

• Edward I made huge profit from expelling Jews, seizing their homes and money

Lombard bankers

1220s

Why did they come?

• In the 1220s, rich banking families started arriving from Northern Italy to make a profit from the growing trade in English wool

• Pope had ruled that Italian banks could charge interest on loans, and Henry III was turning against Jewish moneylenders, so the Italian bankers offered to lend money to the King

Were they welcomed?

• Families such as the Bardis from Florence were given letters of protection

• London merchants did not welcome foreign bankers and regularly demanded controls on them, sometimes with success

• Foreigners were often disliked by the general public, who felt they would simply make their money then leave

What impact did they have?

• For over 100 years, the bankers and Crown got richer, until Edward III’s debt crisis caused some businesses to go bankrupt

• The money that foreign merchants invested boosted England’s economy nu encouraging trade and buildings works as well as financing wars

• The City of London’s financial status began at this time, with many words we use about money (bank, credit, debit, £) coming from Italian

Hansa merchants

1303

Why did they come?

• Edward I granted the Hanseatic League a Merchant’s Charter in 1303, giving it tax and customs privileges, and its members protections

• The merchants came to make money - trading materials such as timbers, furs, honey, wool and cloth

Were they welcomed?

• In Lynn, merchants were allowed to have their own houses rather than being forced to lodge with the locals

• In the 1381 Great Rebellion and again in 1492, the home of the Hanseatic League, the London Steelyard, was destroyed in anti-foreigner riots

• Poorer craft workers and English merchants hated how much power the League had, feeling the foreigners were being given special treatment, taking local artisans’ jobs, pushing up prices and causing a housing crisis, so pressed the government to control them

• Eventually, control of trade passed to English merchants and in 1598, Queen Elizabeth closed down the steelyard

What impact did they have?

• They were perhaps the first people to make a City of London a world financial centre

• The League had a significant effect on England’s economy, helping it become a rich manufacturing and trading nation

Flemish

1330s

Why did they come?

• Many fleeing war and poverty in the Low Countries

• Edward III restricted wool imports to build a cloth-making industry in England, and many Flemish had weaving skills to kickstart manufacturing economy

Were they welcomed?

• Their much-needed skills meant that they were welcomed by the English

• Some viewed Flemish as threatening English jobs, but they largely prospered and John Kempe set up a guild of Flemish weavers that reached agreement with local workers

What impact did they have?

• Played a big part in growing England’s economy - creating work for sheep shearers, fullers, and dryers

• Made Lavenham in Suffolk and Castle Combe in Wiltshire wealthy from selling cloth, and set up in their looms in small town of Manchester, which later became the hub of England’s textile trade

Walloons

1560s

Why did they come?

• Fled what is now Belgium as ruled by Catholic Spain, where the Duke of Alba persecuted Walloons who opposed the Spanish rule

Were they welcomed?

• Many were welcomed as skilled workers - towns in Kent invited Walloons to set up businesses

• Welcomed by English authorities as they were Protestant, and Spain was an enemy power

What impact did they have?

• First wave of a significant period of Protestant migration

• By 1595, more than 3,000 immigrants in Canterbury, weaving woollen and silk cloth

Huguenots

1570s and 1680s

Why did they come?

• Fled persecution - 10,000 Protestants murdered in St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572

• In 1680s, Louis XIV overturned protection of Protestants

Were they welcomed?

• Welcomed by English authorities as they were Protestant, and France was an enemy power

• Lots of sympathy as English media was full of stories of awful things done to Huguenots by French Catholics

• Some still risked beatings during frequent anti-foreigner riots as poorer English felt threatened and believed Huguenots were receiving special privileges

What impact did they have?

• Brought new trades such as feather-work, fan-making, soap, etc. Spinners, weavers and wood-carvers boosted trade across south England

• Transformed the silk cloth trade, increasing production so rapidly that England became a net exporter

• Key role in development of capitalist economy - when Bank of England was founded in 1694, 10% of investment came from Huguenot entrepreneurs

Rhineland Palatines

1709

Why did they come?

• Government passed Foreign Protestants Naturalisation Act, allowing all Protestants to live in England with full rights for one shilling

• Palatines were suffering poor harvests, terrible winter, decades of war and brutal landlords forcing them to become Catholics

Were they welcomed?

• They were not the wealthy Protestants the government was hoping to attract 13,000 arrived starving and diseased, and many were housed in the world’s first refugee camp on Blackheath

• Initially received kindly, with money raised to help them, but soon denounced as a threat and drain on resources

• In one incident in Kent, Palatines were stoned by a mob

• Government deported 5,000 to Ireland in August 1709, but it was a disaster as land was poor and Palatines were hated by the Catholic majority

What impact did they have?

• Some were able to find work in the military or building canals, but most were unemployed

• In 1712, Government repealed Foreign Protestants Naturalisation Act - Britain no longer had an ‘open border’ policy for European migrants

Gypsies

1500s

Why did they come?

• Migrated from Northern India centuries earlier

• Came and went, living alongside the settled population, working as farm workers and entertainers

Were they welcomed?

• Their different way of life meant they suffered extreme prejudice

• No state protection - In 1530, Henry VIII ordered the expulsion of Gypsies; in 1544 Mary I made it a crime punishable by death to by a gypsy; in 1577 six people were hanged for mixing with Gypsies

What impact did they have?

• Significant cultural impact on language and leisure in Britain, and many key figures in British life today have Gypsy roots (Tyson Fury; Tracey Emin

Jews (early modern)

1650s

Why did they come?

• In 1655, a rabbi from Amsterdam, Menasseh Ben Israel, travelled t London to persuade Oliver Cromwell to offer Jews asylum after a massacre in Ukraine

• Cromwell agreed, believing Jewish merchants would help the economy, and that the ‘Second Coming of Christ’ would only happen if there were Jews in England

Were they welcomed?

• Arrived quietly in 1656, settling mainly in the City of London. Their ability to settle relatively easily suggests attitudes had changed after the Reformation and Civil War

What impact did they have?

• Established a synagogue in the City of London

• Some Jewish families did well in London, Hull Portsmouth, etc, but some were poor and survived by travelling around selling second-hand goods

Africans

1500s

Why did they come?

• In 1492, Spanish armies re-conquered the Muslim territory of Al-Andalus. The annulment of Henry VIII and Catherine’s marriage caused Spain and England to become enemies. After an unsuccessful rebellion against Spanish rule in 1568, some ‘Moors’ may have come to England as refugees

• Relations between England and North Africa were good, so they may have come from Morocco

Were they welcomed?

• Lack of evidence makes it difficult to know to what extent Black people were accepted

• Court records show Black people had the right to a voice and equal respect under the law - Jacques Francis gave evidence in court supporting his employer

What impact did they have?

• Wide range of roles in society, but quite subtle

Child servants

1600s

Why did they come?

• Transatlantic slave trade had developed since Charles II granted charter for RAC

• Some servants may have originally been enslaved, whilst others may have been born in England

Were they welcomed?

• The children were treated as status symbols, objects of curiosity, or even pets. There is evidence that some were treated as property

• Soe were treated well - Sir William Batten left his lighthouse to Mingo (but Pepys mentions making Mingo dance)

• An Indian child servant, Julian, was hanged for stealing money from his mistress’s house and setting it on fire

• Hard to know, when they were mistreated, if it was because they were Black, because they were a servant, or because they were children

What impact did they have?

• Status symbol during early modern period

• Frequently depicted in artworks of wealthy families

Africans (Early modern industrial)

1700s and 1800s

Why did they come?

• Some had originally been enslaved, and arrived with their owners

• British government had offered enslaved people freedom in return for fighting in the War of American independence. When Britain lost, they were brought back to Britain

• Large number of Black men joined the armed forces to fight in the Napoleonic Wars

Were they welcomed?

• Although slavery was illegal in England, some plantation owners still treated their servants as slaves

• In 1730, City of London banned Black people from being apprentices

• In the Napoleonic Wars, Black servicemen were paid the same as White servicemen

What impact did they have?

• Autobiographies from formerly enslaved people like Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano were widely read and played a central role in the abolition movement

• Black radicals - William Davidson was executed for role in ‘Cato Street Conspirators’, who plotted to assassinate the Prime Minister; Robert Wedderburn was a leading member of the Spencean movement, which called for the sharing of land and end of slavery

Lascars

1800s

Why did they come?

• During the Napoleonic Wars, lots of commercial sailors were drafted into the Royal Navy, so sailors from China, Malaya and India replaced them

• When sailors docked in Britain, some stayed voluntarily, while others were forced to stay as they had only been employed for a one-way journey

• Yemeni and Somali sailors joined after the Suez Canal opened in 1869, feeling drought and famine

Were they welcomed?

• Authorities tried to prevent Lascars from settling in the UK, but wanted them to be available for work if necessary - 1814 regulation said that even though Asian sailors had been born under British rule, they did not count as British subjects

• 1823 Merchant Shipping Act made the EIC responsible for the Lascars’ upkeep in Britain; 1894 Merchant Shipping Act required shio owners to forcibly round up and remove Lascras

• Asian seamen were paid far less than White sailors, and employers often preferred them because they did not drink and were seen as more obedient. This led to resentment from White sailors and violence often erupted, such as in Barrow in 1893

What impact did they have?

• Chinese sailors opened cafes and restaurants, establishing ‘Chinatowns’

• Many sailors did not speak English, and were described as isolated in ‘in distress’ by missionaries

• Many settled down in Britain, marrying White women, setting up boarding houses and spread across the country (e.g. Yemenis working on Manchester Ship Canal)

Ayahs

1800s

Why did they come?

• British families working for the EIC employed Indian nannies to look after their children and brought them to Britain when the family returned

• Some ayahs were abandoned on arrival if their services were only required for the sea voyage, and others lost their jobs when the children grew up

Were they welcomed?

• Most longed to return to India and were trapped in destitution in Britain

What impact did they have?

• In 1900, London City Mission set up a home of 30 rooms to house Ayahs who had nowhere to go

Eminent Indians

1800s

Why did they come?

• Some came to study at university (e.g. Cornelia Sorabji) or as a servant to Queen Victoria (Abdul Karim)

Were they welcomed?

• Some lived like country gentlemen, friendly with the most power British people (e.g. Maharajah Duleep Singh)

• Naoroji and Bhownaggree were elected as MPs by a mainly White electorate

• Prince Ranjitsinhji was a wildly popular cricketer

What impact did they have?

• Dr Frederick Akbar Mahomed’s work on blood pressure advanced medical understanding

• Sophia Duleep Singh became a leading suffragette

Irish

1800s

Why did they come?

• Collapse in agriculture after 1815 and population boom meant shortage of food

• Land was unfairly distributed, with most owned by wealthy English landowners who treated Irish tenants badly

• Belfast was the only industrialised city, so not enough job opportunities; many families had depended on cotton-weaving and nail-making, but these were now being produced more cheaply in English factories

• Famine of 1845-9 killed 1 million people, and 2 million left for Britain, Canada and the USA

Were they welcomed?

• Many Irish immigrants had to live in the dirtiest, most overcrowded areas of cities

• Many believed low irish wages were undercutting English workers; many Irish workers also joined trade union, putting them into conflict with employers

• English had many unfounded negative stereotypes, such as that Irish people were criminals or drunks

• Racist anti-Irish riots took place in Cardiff in 1848; in Wigan, Preston and Oldham in 1851; and in Stockport in 1852

What impact did they have?

• Played a large part in building railways, canals and roads

• 1750-1900 - proportion of Irish soldiers in the British army ranged between 20%-40%

• Irish middle class produced successful people like Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Dr Thomas Barnardo

Scottish

1800s

Why did they come?

• The potato famine also hit Scotland

• Highland clearances - Scottish and English landlords forcibly evicted Scottish tenants when they realised the land would be more profitable when used for sheep farming, deer forests and tourism

Were they welcomed?

• Treatment by English during Highland clearances was brutal - many villages were burned

What impact did they have?

• Many went to work in factories in northern England, and others joined the armed forces

Italians

Late 1800s

Why did they come?

• Many rural people escaping war, typhus epidemics and changes to agriculture that caused great poverty

Were they welcomed?

• Strongly contrasting views: The Times describe them as dirty and idle, whereas London’s assistant medical officer reported their cleanliness was far higher than English people of similar class

What impact did they have?

• Ice cream! By 1900, 300 ice cream parlours in Glasgow alone. Entrepreneurs like Carol Gatti and Carolina Tiani furthered expansion. Creation of ice cream cones after cholera was blamed on dirty glasses

• Family businesses allowed community to prosper - Italian schools, shops, hospital in Bloomsbury and its own Chamber of Commerce

German

Late 1800s

Why did they come?

• Businesses were often supported by top banks with German origins, such as Barings or Rothschild

Were they welcomed?

• They fact they were Protestant and employed often meant less hostility

• Complex relationship with workers - joined in 1877 stonemasons’ strike, but many aso acted as strike-breakers

What impact did they have?

• Less visible than other groups because they spread out over the UK

• Numerous successful businesses (e.g. General Electric, Schweppes, Harland and Wolff)

• Delikatessens served sausages, which became part of typical English breakfast

Eastern European Jews

Late 1800s

Why did they come?

• Freedoms in Britain steadily improving - allowed to trade freely in 1830 and equal civil rights in 1858

• Many fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe - in 1900, 3,000 walked all the way from Romania

Were they welcomed?

• Jewish upper-class were worried new Jewish arrivals were clinging to their culture and Yiddish language, so urged them to assimilate

• Many crammed into overcrowded lodgings in East London, and some women were kidnapped and forced into prostitution

What impact did they have?

• Extreme conditions in sweatshops encouraged revolutionary movements - radical thinkers met in Berners Street; trade union activism grew (e.g. many Jewish women joined in 1888 match girls’ strike)

• Major highstreet brands like Marks and Spencer have their origins in Whitechapel’s sweatshops

Asylum seekers

Late 1800s

Why did they come?

• Needing saftey due to opposition to rulers in their own country - Napoleon III, Latvians fighting Russian Empire, Italian unification supporter Giuseppe Mazzini, Karl Marx

• Several African-American anti-slavery activists - Frederick Douglass and Ellen Craft

Were they welcomed?

• Openness to exiles; many gave public lectures (e.g. Ellen Craft)

What impact did they have?

• Many ideas exchanged and debated, helping generate important political writings, such as Capital by Karl Marx

Latvians

1900s

Why did they come?

• Temporary refugees escaping an oppressive regime

Were they welcomed?

• 1905 Aliens Act increased anti-foreigner feeling

• Attempted robbery by Latvians in Walthamstow in 1909 led to death of policeman and 10-year-old boy, and robbery in 1911 led to gun battle, killing all the Latvians and three policemen

What impact did they have?

• Press coverage stirred up public feeling against ‘aliens’

Black soliders

1910s and 1940s

Why did they come?

• Millions of soldiers from across the British Empire served in both wars (although ‘colour bar’ meant no Black people were allowed in the Navy)

Were they welcomed?

• At the end of WW1, Black troops were not allowed to take part in the victory parade

What impact did they have?

• Contributions from Indian, African and West Indian soldiers was crucial to the war effort

• Resentment from White workers led to riots - in Toxteth, Charles Wotten from Bermuda was attacked and killed; riots in Cardiff in 1919

Lascars - modern

1914, 1920s and 1940s

Why did they come?

• Millions of soldiers from across the British Empire served in the war. British merchant seamen were drafted into the Royal Navy, so Lascars filled labour shortages on cargo ships

• Ship owners preferred to employ ‘coloured’ seamen because they paid them less than White sailors - average of £1 a week to White sailors’ £9 in the early 1920s

Were they welcomed?

• in 1914, Lascars were paid 1/5 of White Sailors’ pay, and by 1919 White pay was 14 times as high

• Government wanted to make sure there were jobs for returning British soliders, so 1919 Alien Registration Act limited rights of foreigners to do certain jobs

• Instead of welcoming migrant workers to the union, the National Union of Seamen argued to force out ‘coloured seamen’

• Government responded with 1925 Coloured Alien Seamen order, which forced them to register with the police

What impact did they have?

• Lascars had been crucial in transporting food and vital supplies during the war

Black British

1930s

Why did they come?

• Some were soldiers who had stayed, others were born in Britain

Were they welcomed?

• ‘Colour bar’ still an issue - in 1938, 18 hospitals refused to train Black nurses

What impact did they have?

• League of Coloured People set up in 1931 by Harold Moody to support members facing racial discrimination

• Pan-African Conference held in Manchester in 1945, preparing the way for independence from colonial rule

Jews - Modern

1930s

Why did they come?

• Many fled after Nazis came to power in 1933

• 10,000 brought over through Kindertransport

Were they welcomed?

• British Union of Fascists targeted Jewish community in London’s East End - Battle of Cable Street 1936

• Many families welcomed refugees into their homes, but some were openly hostile - Daily mail said ‘the floodgates would be opened and we should be inundated’

What impact did they have?

• Several Kindertransport children went o to have outstanding careers as philosophers, artists, etc; Walter Kohn and Arno Penzias became Nobel prize winners

Polish

1940s

Why did they come?

• After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, 160,000 Polish refugees arrived, with many serving in the armed forces

• 1947 - Polish Resettlement Act gave Polish servicemen the chance to return home or stay in Britain. About 120,000 chose to stay

• The government wanted them to work in key industries such as the coal mines, were there were labour shortages

Were they welcomed?

• To begin with, trade union called for a ban on Polish workers, but they were slowly accepted

• Polish Resettlement Corps helped Polish immigrants to find employment

• Some opposition - one poll found 56% of British people wanted Poles to go home

What impact did they have?

• By 1950, there were hundreds of Polish shops, farms, businesses, and even a university in Earls’ Court

Windrush

1948

Why did they come?

• Serious labour shortages after the war - men were killed, bombed areas needed rebuilding, newly created NHS needed staff

• Wages were four to five times higher in Britain than in the Caribbean

• West Indians were raised with great affection to the ‘mother country’

• 1948 British Nationality Act gave every member of the Commonwealth British citizenship

Were they welcomed?

• As the first large group of non-White migrants arriving at once, many faced racial discrimination

• Hotels and restaurants refused entry to Black people, and many put signs up (‘No Blacks. No Irish. No dogs.’)

• Fewer than 20% of landladies rented to Black people, so many Caribbean immigrants settled in the poorest areas, such as Tottenham in London, or Handsworth in Birmingham

• Major violence in 1958 in Nottingham and Notting Hill; Kelso Cochrane murdered in 1959

• In 1968, Enoch Powell gave his infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech

What impact did they have?

• Claudia Jones created Notting Hill carnival to unite West Indian people against discrimination and celebrate Caribbean culture

• 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott ended the colour bar on Bristol’s buses

Indian and Pakistani immigration

1948

Why did they come?

• As Commonwealth passport holders, they had the right to work

• Chain migration - people from the same villages followed each other to the same towns

Were they welcomed?

• 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act aimed to restrict non-White migrants

• Many migrants chose to settle where their own communities were already growing (e.g. Pakistanis in Bradford; Punjabis in Birmingham

What impact did they have?

• Family-run Indian restaurants grew

East African Asians

1960s and 1970s

Why did they come?

• Newly independent East African governments (Kenya 1960s and Uganda 1970s) were expelling Asian residents brought over by the British 100 years earlier as indentured servants

Were they welcomed?

• 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act introduced to stop influx from Kenya, but they were let in after an outcry, although law remained

• Britain accepted Ugandan refugees. Government minister Peter Rawlinson said ‘a state is under a duty’

What impact did they have?

• Many East African Asians went on the be highly successful (film director Gurindeer Chadha; professor of physics Sir Tejinder Singh Virdee)

Black and Asian British

1970s and 1980s

Why did they come?

• Most had arrived in previous generations, but openly racist National Front was gaining support, and wanted to ban all non-White immigration

Were they welcomed?

• Murder of young Sikh Gurdip Singh Chaggar in 1976; Bangladeshi Altab Ali in 1978; White anti-racist teacher Blair Peach in 1979

• Most of the mainstream press and many politicians attacked immigration - after a comment by Thatcher, those worried about immigration jumped from 9% to 21%

• Arson attack in New Cross in 1981 killed 13 Black children, and no-one was ever indicted

• Operation Swamp 81 used ‘SUS’ laws to stop and search mainly young Black people

What impact did they have?

• In 1976, Southall Youth Movement formed to defend members of Sikh community, and Rock against Racism set up to oppose racism

• Many became MPs (Bernie Grant, Diane Abbott) although proportion of non-White MPs still below proportion of non-White population (4% vs 31%)

• In the 1980s, Newham Monitoring Project organised legal defence for young people they believed had been wrongly arrested for confronting racist attackers

Eastern European

2004

Why did they come?

• When 10 new nations joined the EU in 2004, Labour government adopted an ‘open-door’ policy

• Most arrivals saw themselves as temporary migrants, who would eventually return home

Were they welcomed?

• Unlike previous immigrant groups, Polish migrants spread around the whole country, which led to anti-migrant feeling growing in working-class communities in Northern England, Midland and south-east

• Support grew for an anti-immigration party UKIP, who came 2nd in UK electrons in 2009 and 1st in 2014

• By 2010, both Conservative and Labour talked or tighter border controls

What impact did they have?

• In 2007, Government report found immigration had contributed £6 billion to the UK economy

• A 2015 Bank of England report found immigration was having a ‘small but negative’ impact on wages