Anti-foreigner feeling came to a head in London in 1517 in the events known as ‘Evil May Day’ when young apprentices rioted, with the anger directed especially against the many foreigners in Henry VIII’s court. The unrest was put down violently. Later in the century popular pressure led to Queen Elizabeth closing down the Hansa merchants’ Steelyards.
From 1500-1750
Overall, migration to England in this period was mainly affected by two major developments in England’s relationship with Europe and the wider world: the Protestant Reformation and the beginnings of English colonisation beyond the British Isles.
The Reformation. The rise of Protestantism in the sixteenth century led to religious wars across Europe. Following King Henry VIII’s break with Rome and especially under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, England became a major Protestant nation with Catholic Spain and, later, France as its chief rivals. Protestant refugees fled to England seeking safety and were largely welcomed. They included Walloons from Belgium and northern France, followed by French Huguenots after the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572.
Elizabeth’s opposition to Spain helped ensure good relations with Muslim powers in the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. The small number of Africans living freely in Tudor England followed several different trades and included North African Muslims and others from the continent’s west coast.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century there was further extreme repression of Huguenots by the regime of French King Louis XIV and large numbers of refugees crossed to England (see: ‘The plight of the Huguenots’). Many brought a wide range of new skills and their treatment varied: some were accused of undercutting the work and pay of the English, but most thrived (see: ‘Huguenot silk weavers in Spitalfields'). They and their descendants would have a major impact on all aspects of life in the country – from the banking system to the armed forces, from silk weaving to clock making. They played a key role in Britain’s transition to an industrial and capitalist economy.
Another group was less fortunate. After the government announced that all Protestant refugees would be welcome, large numbers of very poor Palatines from the German Rhine valley arrived in the Thames Estuary (see: ‘Palatines in exile'). Initial welcome changed to resentment and repression: they were housed in refugee camps and those who did not return home or move on to North America were deported to Ireland.
The East India Company. In 1600 the East India Company set up a trading post in northwest India. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries its power and influence expanded across the country. The Company eventually exerted military and political control over most of India and dominated trade between Europe and most of Asia. Its ships bringing textiles, porcelain, furniture and spices needed seamen and they were hired in ports such as Shanghai, Singapore, Calcutta (Kolkata) and Surat. Working for low wages in often terrible conditions, these lascar seamen began to arrive in our ports (see: ‘The lascars’). Some were then abandoned to fend for themselves so far from home. Meanwhile several East India Company administrators returning from time in India brought with them Indian women as nannies (ayahs) for their children as well as Indian children to work as servants (see: ‘A home for the ayahs'). The first record we have of an Indian child in England is a Bengali boy who was baptised in London in 1616.
The American colonies and the Triangular Trade in enslaved Africans. In 1660 the Royal African Company began buying and transporting women, men and children from the West African coast to work as slaves on English plantations growing mainly tobacco in North America and sugar in the Caribbean. Increasing numbers of Africans appear in paintings, parish and court records and other documents including advertisements for runaway servants. It is likely that many, but not all of these people depicted had originally been enslaved: they may have arrived directly from Africa or been brought from the Caribbean by their owners (see: ‘African freedom in Tudor England’). Black child servants were, like Indian children, seen as highly fashionable and appear in many portraits of the rich and powerful.
The return of a Jewish community. During the Protectorate that followed Parliament’s victory in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the execution of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell allowed a small number of Jews to settle in England, over 350 years after they had been expelled. His reasons were mixed: partly because they faced persecution and partly for commercial, political and religious reasons. There was a lot of opposition to their arrival so they came quietly, settling first in a small part of London and then in other towns. The community grew to about 8,000 by the year 1700 and, while there is evidence of prejudice against them, many began to prosper.
Emigration. This was also a period of mass emigration. Large numbers of people left the British Isles to live elsewhere, particularly in North America and the Caribbean. They included refugees from religious and political persecution, dispossessed Irish peasants and Scottish Highlanders and thousands of the poor who signed up as indentured labourers hoping that, after tied work on plantations, they might find a better life.
Migrant acceptance in Early Modern Britain
It is very difficult to know to what extent immigrants were accepted in this ‘Early Modern’ period. It was always easier for wealthy immigrants than the destitute like the Palatines or Romani Gypsies. What little evidence we have suggests that ‘difference’ in the sixteenth century was defined by faith and class rather than skin colour: it may have been much easier to be an African basket maker than a Catholic priest in Elizabethan England. By the later seventeenth century, however, with the growth of empire and the trade in enslaved Africans, deep divisions were developing between coloniser and colonised and were being defined in racial terms.
Written by Martin Spafford, Schools History Project