Migration and Settlement in Britain

Multi-cultural Britain

• Britain today is culturally and racially a very diverse country.

• London - the most international city in the world

• Communities from all over the world co-existing

• British seen as very tolerant and open-minded

• What is the real picture? Does this apply to the whole UK?

• Has it always been like this?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gwgpaK9Wc0

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNRvTo8rv8

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpDrgrxrR3c

• "We celebrate the diversity in our country, get strength from the cultures and the races that go to make up Britain today." Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2 October 2001

• : "Far from being something which impacts upon UK life I see [diversity] as something that revitalises us and makes us powerful economically.“ N London headteacher

Interviews from the Broadwater Estate in Tottenham

• So it fell to one of the estate's oldest residents to explain its new allure. Mary Kemp, 82, has lived on the estate with her husband, Bill, since it was opened. She said: "We moved here from a house with no bathroom. It was like a holiday camp and that remains the case. We are pure English and do you know what that means? It means being tolerant of people, regardless of colour or creed. It means embracing people who are different from you. That's why we stayed here."

• Jennifer Kamara, 35, a mother-of-four who has lived on the estate for 12 years since coming to Britain from the civil war in Sierra Leone, said: "This is not paradise on earth, we still have the same problems as anywhere else, but people have been given back their purpose and dignity. The kids have their free time occupied and we enjoy the fact that so many different cultures are here. My neighbours are Turkish, my kids walk to school with their Bangladeshi friends. We are one big family on Broadwater."

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4741753.stm

• In spite of an image of Britain and the British being very tolerant, it has always been a very mixed picture, as it is now.

• http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=42665&dspl=discover1

‘Mongrel Nation’

• Remember the Celts, Romans, Anglo Saxons, Vikings and Normans

• During one of these phases part of Britain did become quite multi-cultural and multi-racial - Which? Why?

The Romans• Why?

• Britain became part of an extensive empire and so developed ties and connections with other parts of the Roman Empire as far as N Africa and Middle East

• Soldiers, sailors, merchants, slaves

• What happened when the Romans left?• England became much more mono-

cultural and was once again an isolated outpost of Europe - though it was visited by Christian missionaries.

• As part of the Christian ‘Empire’ literacy developed and ‘Old English’ became an advanced written language.

1066 – What happened?

• Norman invasion – William brought some of the Jews from Rouen, merchants and ‘financiers’.

• Jewish quarter in London• Then expelled in 1283• Did not return until the 1660s – Cromwell• From then until today Jews have established a very

strong presence, especially in London, so they can be described as the oldest migratory group in the UK.

• For much of that time, they had to endure a stigma and were often not fully accepted into society – often outsiders.

• What reasons for this?

• The Jews kept their own faith, distinct from Christianity.

• Christians perceived them as the people responsible for the death of Jesus.

• Within Christian society they were permitted to practise one profession, which was forbidden to Christians. ??

• Money lending, or what we would today call ?• Banking• Which famous Shakespearean character was a Jew?

Shylock – ‘The Merchant of Venice’Origin of the well known phrase, ‘a pound of flesh’.

• Why did Cromwell invite Jews from Spain and Portugal to return to England?

• Was it Christian benevolence?• It was to help the English economy.• This was a new start which saw some Jews

become very successful bankers, and reinforce their reputation for being very good, and mean, with money.

• This became a very negative stereotype and provoked great envy at times of economic hardship

• The most famous name?• Rothschild

Other Influences - The 16th C

• After a very long interval England was entering the modern age and looking outwards, showing interest in the wider world - Why?

• The age of exploration, naval strength (and piracy), growing international trade (including the beginning of the slave trade)

• Elizabeth 1 - ‘the divers blackamoors brought into these realms, of which there already too manie’!

• But the next significant group came from somewhere much nearer and for different reasons.

• The Hugenots from France - any ideas?

• They were from France in the 17th C.• What was the biggest problem issue in

Europe at this time?• Religion• So why would thousands of French

come to England because of religion?• What were the main religions of

England and France?

The Hugenots

• They were Protestants in a largely Catholic country – the reverse situation from Catholics in England.

• The Edict of Nantes had granted French Protestants limited rights of worship – better than England

• In 1685 Louis XIV revoked this edict

• Charles II had issued a proclamation inviting any who wished to come to England

• About 20,000 came to London, but settled outside the City, notably in Spitalfields and Soho.

• Soho was described as 'abounding with French so that it is an easy matter for a stranger to imagine himself in France'.

• They were from all walks of life but included many skilled craftsmen, especially silk weavers, clockmakers, jewellers, silver smiths.

• They did have a significant impact on London life.

• Generally sympathetically received – why might that be?

• Religious affinities – fellow Protestants and ‘enemies of Rome’

• But the welcome was not universal – why might that be?

Fournier Street was named after George Fournier, a man of Huguenot extraction.

• Why did they live outside of the boundaries of the City of London?

• It was cheaper, but also the Guilds ??• A little like modern Trades Unions – unless

you were a member you could not practise your trade inside the city boundaries.

• The Hugenots were resented by some for offering ‘cheap labour’

• The French communities in the capital differed markedly from one another. The largest, in Spitalfields, depended heavily on the weaving trade. The most remote, at Wandsworth, was notable for its hatmakers...the common factor bringing them together was their market, for the English gentry coming to Parliament or the royal courts welcomed the opportunity to acquire the latest in French fashions.

• Tessa Murdoch (ed.) 'The Quiet Conquest: The Huguenots 1685 to 1985',

The Legacy Today

• Over time they assimilated into British society, spoke English, took up the Church of England.

• A quarter of Londoners have some Hugenot blood.

• Architecture and churches, street and also family names

The Irish

• The relationship between England/Britain and Ireland is long, complex and troubled.

• Irish presence in England goes back to medieval times, but very limited.

• 1st recognisable Irish district in St Giles, near Oxford St, 18th C

• 1st big wave of Irish migration was in the 1840s – why?

• The Great Famine.

• The Irish were unlike the French Hugenots in some important ways ??

• They were Catholic• Many were unskilled and uneducated and so

very poor – not a racial stereotype, but a reflection of the social system imposed by the English

• They came in much greater numbers.• By 1851 there were 108,500 Irish-born people

in London, as well others of Irish descent.• What did they do?

Scene with many men constructing a dock. In the centre is a large dug out section of

ground.

• The age of the ‘Irish navvie’

• The Irish provided the ‘muscle’ during the transformation of Britain during the Industrial Revolution, notably the construction of the railways.

•detail from Work by Ford Madox Brown

• During and just after WW2 the Irish population expanded again and they became the largest ‘foreign’ group.

• However, there have often been tensions – religion, jobs, living conditions/large families, suspected IRA connections/sympathies

• Nowadays no real problems, many families go back several generations.

• March 17th??• St Patrick’s day - big celebrations in many

places - lots of Guiness!

The Jews - recent events

• In the 1880s and 90s, thousands of Jews fled from Russia, where Jews were being persecuted in ‘pogroms’.

• Many settled in London, especially the East End, still outside of the City, and with cheaper housing and an existing Jewish community.

The East End 1880s - Dore

20th C

• 1930s - another wave - why?• Events in Europe, especially Germany, the

rise of Hitler and his stirring up of anti-Semitism resulting in the Holocaust.

• Many were highly qualified but forced to take unskilled jobs - university professors as servants.

• Echo of Germany - British Fascist Party - Oswald Mosely and his blackshirts.

• Battle of

• Today settled and flourishing - many have moved to more prosperous N London areas, Golders Green

• Jewish Museum in Camden, Holocuast section in Imperial War Museum

• Some worrying signs of anti-Semitism - linked to anti-Israel feelings and radical Islam

Post WW2

• So we come full circle• Break up of British Empire• Britain needed rebuilding• Groups arrived, especially from Caribbean,

India and Pakistan, Africa - communities established, not without tensions - National Front.

• Naturally people lived together - ‘ghettoiasation’ hindered integration.

• Some went the other way - Australia for a ‘fiver’!

Enoch Powell – ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech - 1968

• Here is a decent, ordinary fellow-Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that the country will not be worth living in for his children. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking – not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history.[4]

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Front

• Commission for Racial Equality

• Equality and Human Rights Commission

Recent times

• People from all over the world - many fleeing wars and persecution, seeking asylum

• Hardly a single country without its own community in London - witness the World Cup.

• Expansion of EU opened borders to people from E Europe

Week 5 trip

• Tuesday November 2nd – meet outside the gift shop at the Tower of London at 2pm.

• Class register will be taken, this is not an option.