Windrush and postwar migration
The arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 symbolises the start of large-scale migration from the Caribbean, South Asia and Africa that turns England into a multi-ethnic country.
- An iconic and treasured record: The Empire Windrush passenger list — The National Archives (UK), The National Archives
- Black and British: A Forgotten History — David Olusoga, Macmillan (2016)
- Windrush Lessons Learned Review — Wendy Williams, Home Office (2020)
- Ethnic group, England and Wales: Census 2021 — Office for National Statistics (2022)
- Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics — Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford, Cambridge University Press (2020)
On 22 June 1948 the ship Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on the Thames carrying 1,027 passengers, 802 of whom gave a Caribbean country as their last place of residence. Under the British Nationality Act of 1948 people from the colonies were British subjects with the right to settle, and over the following decades hundreds of thousands came from the Caribbean, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Africa and elsewhere.
- An iconic and treasured record: The Empire Windrush passenger list — The National Archives (UK), The National Archives
- Black and British: A Forgotten History — David Olusoga, Macmillan (2016)
Many came to fill labour shortages in hospitals, buses, foundries and textile mills. They also met hostility: “No Irish, no Blacks, no dogs” signs on lodging houses, the Notting Hill riots of 1958, and Enoch Powell’s 1968 “rivers of blood” speech, which won him widespread support. Laws from 1962 onwards restricted Commonwealth immigration, while Race Relations Acts from 1965 began to outlaw discrimination.
- Black and British: A Forgotten History — David Olusoga, Macmillan (2016)
- Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics — Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford, Cambridge University Press (2020)
In 2018 it emerged that some of the “Windrush generation”, who had lived legally in Britain for decades, had been detained, denied healthcare or deported under a “hostile environment” policy. An official review by Wendy Williams found the Home Office had shown “ignorance and thoughtlessness” on race. In the 2021 census, 81.7% of people in England and Wales identified as White, 9.3% as Asian and 4.0% as Black, with much higher diversity in London, Birmingham, Leicester and Manchester.
- Windrush Lessons Learned Review — Wendy Williams, Home Office (2020)
- Ethnic group, England and Wales: Census 2021 — Office for National Statistics (2022)
Migrants from the Commonwealth answered Britain's call to rebuild after the war, staffed the NHS and public transport, and helped make England a more open, dynamic and creative country.
- Black and British: A Forgotten History — David Olusoga, Macmillan (2016)
- An iconic and treasured record: The Empire Windrush passenger list — The National Archives (UK), The National Archives
For some white English people, especially in older industrial towns, the pace of change has felt like something that happened to them without consent, a feeling politicians from Enoch Powell to the Brexit campaign have tapped into.
- Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics — Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford, Cambridge University Press (2020)
Why it matters today
Modern England, from its food and music to its football team and its prime ministers, is unthinkable without postwar migration. The story is both a source of pride, celebrated on Windrush Day each 22 June, and of hurt: the racism the first arrivals faced, and the 2018 scandal in which some of them were wrongly treated as illegal immigrants.