Immigration into Britain
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Modern humans first arrived in Great Britain during the Palaeolithic era, but until the arrival of 
the Romans (1st century BC) there was no historical record. With the fall of the Roman Empire, Anglo
Saxons (c. 5th century AD) and Vikings (8th century AD) migrated to Great Britain. In 1066, the Normans 
successfully took control of England and, in subsequent years, there was some migration from France. 
In the 19th century, immigration by people outside Europe began on a small scale as people arrived 
from the British colonies. This increased during the 20th century.

Germanic immigrants to Britain
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They first arrived at the invitation of the ruling classes. In the Post-Roman period the traditional 
division into Angles, Saxons and Jutes (Anglo-Saxons) is first seen in the Historia ecclesiastica 
gentis Anglorum by Bede, however historical and archaeological research has shown that a wider range 
of Germanic peoples from the coast of Frisia, Lower Saxony, Jutland and Southern Sweden also moved 
to Britain in this era.

After the withdrawal of the last Roman soldiers from Britain in the early 5th century, the number of 
newcomers increased, and it is speculated that relations with the ruling Romanised Britons became 
strained. By about 449, open conflict had broken out, and the immigrants began to establish their own 
kingdoms in what would eventually become the Heptarchy.

Scots
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During the 5th century, the Dál Riatan Scots started raiding north-western Britain from their base in 
north-east Ireland. After the Roman withdrawal, this developed from piracy to full-scale invasion and, 
within a hundred years, they had established a kingdom in Argyll.

Irish
*****
From prehistory to the present, there has been a continuous process of movement of people across the 
Irish Sea between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. This tide has varied over the centuries 
in response to politics, economics and social conditions of both places. Today, millions of residents 
of Great Britain are either from the island of Ireland or have Irish ancestry.

Vikings (Nordic)
****************
The earliest date given for a Viking raid of Britain is 789 when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
Portland was attacked. A more exact report dates from 8 June 793, when the cloister at Lindisfarne was 
pillaged by foreign seafarers. These raiders, whose expeditions extended well into the 9th century, 
were gradually followed by armies and settlers who brought a new culture and tradition markedly different 
from that of the prevalent Anglo-Saxon society. These enclaves rapidly expanded, and soon the Viking 
warriors were establishing areas of control to such an extent that they could reasonably be described 
as kingdoms.

The Danelaw, established through the Viking conquest of large parts of England, was formally established, 
as a result of the Treaty of Wedmore in the late 9th century, after Alfred the Great had defeated the 
Viking Guthrum at the Battle of Ethandun. The Danelaw represented a consolidation of power for Alfred; 
the subsequent conversion of Guthrum to Christianity underlines the ideological significance of this 
shift in the balance of power. The Danelaw was gradually conquered by the Anglo-Saxons in later years. 
In parts of England today, the influence of the Vikings can still be seen, particularly in place names 
in the East Midlands and the north.

Between 1016 and 1042 England was ruled by Danish kings but the Anglo-Saxons then regained control 
until 1066.

Normans
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The Norman invasion of Britain is normally considered the last successful attempt in history by a 
foreign army to take control of the Kingdom of England by means of military occupation. From the Norman 
point of view, William the Conqueror was considered the legitimate heir to the realm (as explained in 
the Bayeux Tapestry), and the invasion was required to secure this against the usurpation of Harold 
Godwinson.

In the years following the invasion to 1204, Normandy and England kept their close connection. This 
was in part secured by granting aristocrats lands in both domains, giving an incentive on all levels 
to maintain the union. The influx of Norman military and ecclesiastical aristocracy changed the nature
 of the ruling class in England, leading to the creation of an Anglo-Norman population.

There was further immigration and emigration during the time of the Angevin Empire from much of the 
west coast of France. After the loss of much of the Angevin lands in 1202, the strong trade links 
between Gascony and England led to a flow of people between the lands.

Romani
******
Mainly Sinti (as opposed to the Roma, who are more common in parts of Central and Eastern Europe), 
consisting of tribes originating in South Asia (the Indian subcontinent) around 800, began arriving 
in sizable numbers in Western Europe in the 16th century, including in the British Isles. Mostly 
speakers of a dialect of the Romani language (a language very similar to Sanskrit and other Indic 
languages) and initially mainly travellers largely working as Hawkers, Basket Weavers; also as Ostlers, 
Jockeys and many other occupations working with horses.

Although not normally included as British Asians, the Roma and Sinti (also often known as "Gypsies") 
originated in parts of what are now North India and Pakistan. They began travelling westward around 
1000, though they have mixed with West Asians and Europeans over the centuries.

Huguenots
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The Huguenots, french Protestants facing a new wave of persecution, began arriving in England in numbers 
around 1670. King Charles II offered them sanctuary, and in all some 40-50,000 arrived. Many settled 
in the Spitalfields area of London, and, being former silk-weavers, brought new energy to this industry 
in the area and raised silk to an important fashion item in Britain. It has been estimated that as 
many as a quarter of London's population today have a Huguenot ancestor.

Indians
*******
People from South Asia, also known as the Indian subcontinent, have settled in Great Britain since the 
East India Company (EIC) recruited lascars to replace vacancies in their crews on East Indiamen whilst 
on voyages in India. Many were then refused passage back, and were marooned in London. There were also 
some ayahs, domestic servants and nannies of wealthy British families, who accompanied their employers 
back to "Blighty" when their stay in Asia came to an end.

The number of seamen from the East Indies employed on English ships was so great that the English tried 
to restrict their numbers by the Navigation Act of 1660, which restricted the employment of overseas 
sailors to a quarter of the crew on returning East India Company ships. Baptism records in East Greenwich 
suggest that young Indians from the Malabar Coast were being recruited as servants at the end of the 
17th century, and records of the EIC also suggest that Indo-Portuguese cooks from Goa were retained 
by captains from voyage to voyage. In 1797, thirteen were buried in the parish of St Nicholas at Deptford.

Beginning in the 17th century, the East India Company brought over thousands of South Asian scholars, 
lascars, and other workers (who were mostly Bengali and/or Muslim) to England, most of whom settled 
down and took local European wives, due to a lack of Asian women in the British Isles at the time. 
Due to the majority of early Asian immigrants being lascars, the earliest Asian communities were found 
in port towns. Naval cooks also came, many of them from the Sylhet Division of what is now Bangladesh. 
One of the most famous 18th-century Bengali immigrants to Britain was Sake Dean Mahomed, a captain of 
the East India Company. In 1810, he founded London's first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostane Coffee 
House. He is also claimed as the person who introduced shampoo and therapeutic massage to Britain.

By the mid-19th century, there were at least 40,000 Indian seamen, diplomats, scholars, soldiers, 
officials, tourists, businessmen and students in Great Britain. In 1855 more than 25,000 of these were 
lascar seamen. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were around 70,000 South Asians in 
Britain, 51,616 of whom were lascar seamen at the beginning of the First World War.

Africans
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During the 18th century, a substantial population of black people, thought to number about 15,000 by 
mid-century, were brought to Britain initially largely as the captain's share of the cargo of 
transatlantic slave ships. Many of these people became servants in aristocratic households and are 
frequently depicted in contemporary portraits of the family - often depicted in a similar manner to 
family pets. Many black people became part of the urban poor and were often depicted in the caricatures 
and cartoons of William Hogarth, but others attained highly respected positions in society, e.g. 
Ignatius Sancho and Francis Barber - a servant to Dr Samuel Johnson who became a beneficiary of his 
will. These ships stopped carrying black people to Britain after it banned slave trading in 1807.

Following the British defeat in the American War of Independence over 1,100 black loyalist troops who 
had fought on the losing side were transported to Britain, but they mostly ended up destitute on London's 
streets and were viewed as a social problem. The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor was formed. 
They distributed relief and helped the men to go overseas, some to what remained of British North 
America. In 1786, the committee funded an expedition of 280 black men, forty black women and seventy 
white wives and girlfriends to Sierra Leone. The settlement failed and within two years all but sixty 
of the migrants had died.

Germans
*******
Throughout the 19th century a substantial population of German immigrants built up in Britain, 
numbering 28,644 in 1861. London held around half of this population, and other sizeable communities 
existed in Manchester, Bradford and elsewhere. The German immigrant community was the largest group 
until 1891, when it became second only to Russian Jews. There was a mixture of classes and religious 
groupings, and a flourishing culture built up, with the growth of middle and working class clubs. 

Waiters and clerks were two main occupations, and many who worked in these professions went on to 
become restaurant owners and businessmen, to a considerable extent. This community maintained its size 
until the First World War, when public anti-German feeling became very prominent and the Government 
enacted a policy of forced internment and repatriation. The community in 1911 had reached 53,324, but 
fell to just over 20,000 after the war.

Russian Jews
************
England has had small Jewish communities for many centuries, subject to occasional expulsions, but 
British Jews numbered fewer than 10,000 at the start of the 19th century. After 1881 Russian Jews 
suffered bitter persecutions, and British Jews led fund-raising to enable their Russian co-religionists 
to emigrate to the United States. However, out of some 2,000,000 who left Russia by 1914, around 120,000 
settled permanently in Britain. One of the main concentrations was the same Spitalfields area where 
Huguenots had earlier congregated. Immigration was reduced by the Aliens Act 1905 and virtually 
curtailed by the 1914 Aliens Restriction Act. In addition to those Russian Jews who settled permanently 
in the UK an estimated 500,000 Eastern European Jews transmigrated through British ports between 1881 
and 1924. Most were bound for the United States and others migrated to Canada, South Africa, Latin 
America and the Antipodes.

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Since 1945, immigration to the United Kingdom under British nationality law has been substantial, in 
particular from the Republic of Ireland and from the former colonies and territories of the British 
Empire such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, South Africa, Kenya and Hong Kong. Other 
immigrants have come as asylum seekers, seeking protection as refugees under the United Nations 1951 
Refugee Convention, or from member states of the European Union, exercising one of the European Union's 
Four Freedoms.

British Empire and the Commonwealth
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From the mid-eighteenth century until at least 1956, and longer in many areas, the British Empire 
covered a large proportion of the globe. Both during this time, and following the granting of 
independence to most colonies after Second World War, the vast majority of immigrants to the UK were 
from either current or former colonies, most notably those in the Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean.

Following the end of the Second World War, the British Nationality Act 1948 was passed to allow the 
800 million subjects in the British Empire to live and work in the United Kingdom without needing a 
visa. These people filled a gap in the UK labour market for unskilled jobs and many people were 
specifically brought to the UK on ships such as the Empire Windrush.

Commonwealth immigration, made up largely of economic migrants, rose from 3,000 per year in 1953 to 
46,800 in 1956 and 136,400 in 1961

In the 1970s, an average of 72,000 immigrants were settling in the UK every year from the Commonwealth; 
this decreased in the 1980s and early 1990s to around 54,000 per year, only to rise again to around 
97,000 by 1999. The total number of Commonwealth immigrants since 1962 is estimated at around 
2.5 million.


Early British emigration
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The British diaspora consists of the scattering of British people and their descendants who emigrated 
from the United Kingdom. The diaspora is concentrated in countries that had mass migration such as the 
United States and that are part of the Anglosphere. A 2006 publication from the Institute for Public 
Policy Research estimated 5.6 million British-born people lived outside of the United Kingdom.

After the Age of Discovery the British were one of the earliest and largest communities to emigrate 
out of Europe, and the British Empire's expansion during the first half of the 19th century saw an 
extraordinary dispersion of the British people, with particular concentrations in Australasia and 
North America.

The British Empire was "built on waves of migration overseas by British people", who left the UK and 
reached across the globe and permanently affected population structures in three continents. As a 
result of the British colonisation of the Americas, what became the United States was easily the 
greatest single destination of emigrant British.

Historically in the 1790 United States Census estimate and presently in Australia, Canada and New 
Zealand, people of British origin came to constitute the majority of the population, contributing to 
these states becoming integral to the Anglosphere.




Sources:
www.genguide.co.uk
www.victorianweb.org/
www.british-history.ac.uk/
familysearch.org/
www.encyclopedia.com/
www.longparish.org.uk
www.projectbook.co.uk/
winsomegriffin.com/
en.wikipedia.org