Timeline

📜 Migrants in Britain Timeline (c800–Present)

🛡 Medieval Britain (c800–c1500)

• c800–c1000: Vikings raid and settle across Britain (especially in the Danelaw).

• 1066: Norman Conquest — Normans (French-speaking elites) migrate and take control.

• 1100s–1200s: Jewish communities settle (invited by kings, important in finance).

• 1290: Expulsion of Jews by King Edward I — first mass expulsion from England.

• 1300s: Flemish weavers migrate — boost cloth industry in towns like Norwich.

⚔ Early Modern Britain (c1500–c1700)

• 1500s: African migrants appear in Tudor England (servants, sailors, musicians).

• 1560s–1590s: Dutch and Walloon Protestants flee religious persecution; settle mainly in London and East Anglia.

• 1685: Huguenots (French Protestants) migrate after Revocation of the Edict of Nantes — settle in London, Canterbury, Norwich.

🔨 18th and 19th Century Britain (c1700–c1900)

• 1700s: Asian and African sailors (lascars) settle in port cities like London, Cardiff, Liverpool.

• 1845–1852: Irish Famine — mass Irish migration to Britain (especially to industrial cities like Liverpool, Manchester).

• 1880s: Jewish migrants arrive from Eastern Europe and Russia (escaping pogroms).

• Late 1800s: Italian migrants arrive — work as craftsmen, ice-cream sellers, street musicians.

🏙 Modern Britain (c1900–Present)

• 1914–1918: WWI — migrants and soldiers from the Empire come to Britain (e.g., India, Caribbean, Africa).

• 1930s: Jewish refugees arrive escaping Nazism (Kindertransport, 1938–39).

• 1948: Empire Windrush brings Caribbean migrants to help rebuild Britain after WWII.

• 1958: Notting Hill Race Riots — tensions between white and black communities.

• 1962: Commonwealth Immigrants Act restricts migration from colonies.

• 1970s: Migration from South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uganda Asians).

• 2004: EU expansion — migrants from Eastern Europe (e.g., Poland, Romania).

• 2010s: Syrian refugee crisis — asylum seekers arrive.

• 2016: Brexit vote — uncertainty around EU migration.