Immigration

Writer: David Rosenberg

The Aliens Act | An immigrant land | The 'aliens' have landed | Media frenzy | Winners and losers | Who's British now? | Timeline

An immigrant land

Many people see immigration as a modern British issue. They assume Britain was a largely homogenous society until mass public transport enabled people from other lands to settle here in large numbers.

This is a myth. Most white British people are derived not from Neolithic tribes of Britons but from successive waves of invaders and settlers: Romans, Normans, Vikings and Anglo-Saxons came from what are today Italy, France, Norway and Germany.

Since medieval times monarchs claimed a royal prerogative to 'expel foreigners'. In the late 18th and 19th centuries Home secretaries were granted the power to deport foreigners 'for the peace and security of the realm'.

Black Britannia

Old Britannia was multicultural. African soldiers served in the invading Roman army. Troops defending Hadrian's Wall in the 3rd century AD included a division of 'moors'. In the early 16th century a group of Africans were attached to King James's court. Africans and Asians have been British -born as early as the 1500s.

Thousands of young Africans were brought to Britain as domestic slaves, while Britain was involved in the African slave trade. A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I in 1575 shows her with a group of Black musicians and dancers. Her attitude towards them later hardened, and in 1596 she regretted that 'several blackamoores have lately been brought into this realm of which kind of people there are already too much here'. She tried unsuccessfully to expel them.

Romany-speaking Gypsies from northern India, arrived in Europe via Egypt. They first settled in Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries. Their descendents remain here and maintain their culture.

The slave trade created Black communities around Britain's ports, especially in London, Liverpool, Bristol and Cardiff. By the mid-18th century a layer of Black people who had won freedom from slavery established themselves as journalists and authors. In the late 1700s and early 1800s Asian servants were brought to Britain and Asian seafarers first settled. Throughout the 19th century, seafarers arrived from Yemen, Aden, Somalia, Indian and Malaysia and stayed. Britain's first mosque was built in Woking in 1889.

The campaign for Black representation in parliament grew prominently in the 1980s yet the first Black MP was elected in Central Finsbury (London) for the Liberals in 1892. From 1895-1906 an east London Conservative seat was held by Sir Mancherjee Mewanjee Bhownagree and in 1922 Shapurjee Saklatvala was elected as Labour's first Black MP.

European minorities

While conquering armies comprised the most significant white European immigration to Britain, European minorities also found a home here. The word 'refugee' entered the English language when the silk-weaving Huguenots, persecuted French protestants, arrived in London's East End in the late 1600s.

Jews first settled in Britain as early as 1066. Restricted to certain occupations mostly involving finance, they met with growing resentment. There were massacres and the remaining community was expelled in 1290. Their financial niche was taken over by new Italian immigrants.

Four centuries later Oliver Cromwell allowed Jews to return. From this time until the mid 19th century a trickle of Jewish immigrants came from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany and Holland. They faced discrimination and it was not until 1858 that a Jew was allowed to enter parliament.

Eastern European Jews came to England in much larger numbers in the 1890s settling largely in London's East End. Their new ghetto bordered the Chinese, Maltese and Somali quarters of East London.

The last group of Jewish migrants to settle in Britain were black Jews from the Indian subcontinent, who arrived in the early 1960s.

The 'aliens' have landed >