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Articles tagged : colonialism
Date
1750–1900
Region
Asia
The first Indian MP: Dadabhai Naoroji

Migrants as British MPs: Dadabhai Naoroji Dadabhai Naoroji, of Bombay Parsi origin, was the first Indian to be elected to Parliament in Britain. Naoroji travelled to Britain in ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Asia
The Arts across continents: Tagore in London

Tagore: Bengali poet and Nobel Prize winner The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore first came to Britain as a student in 1878 and attended lectures in law at University College, London. He ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
The Americas
Murder in Notting Hill

Kelso Cochrane Notting Hill, London, May 17, 1959, just after midnight. Having had his finger, which he had broken at work, re-plastered at the local hospital, Kelso Cochrane was walking ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
Africa
Exhibiting foreigners: The case of performing ‘prince’ Lobengula

Peoples on parade: a history It is difficult to know when people from outside Europe were first displayed for entertainment for commercial gain. We do know that Christopher Columbus retur ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
The Americas
Darcus Howe and Britain’s Black Power movement

The Black Power movement in Britain The British Black Power movement emerged in London in the summer of 1967. The black American radical Stokely Carmichael spoke at a gathering in Camden, ...

Date
AD43–1500
Region
Africa
Roman Britain: the Ivory Bangle Lady

Invasion, conquest and migration Migration to Britain in the first century was part of the expansion of the Roman Empire and the outcome of colonial and imperial processes. The Roman Empi ...

Date
1500–1750
Region
The Americas
An American princess in London

English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia Jamestown, England’s first permanent settlement in the Americas, was founded by the Charter of the Virginia Company of London, a firm. Ther ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
The Americas
Slavery and the African diaspora: legacies of British slave-ownership

Britain's transatlantic colonies: the forced migration of Africans as slaves The movement of people of African descent to Britain extends throughout history, but the patterns of such move ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Europe
Lithuanian miners in Scotland: migration and misconceptions

Lithuanians in Scotland One in four Lithuanians – about 650,000 individuals – emigrated from their homeland between 1870 and the First World War. Most went to the United State ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
Asia
A home for the ayahs: from India to Britain and back again

The East India Company and Britons abroad The founding of the East India Company in 1600 created employment for many English, Scottish and Irish people. The jobs the Company created  ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
Asia
The lascars: Britain's colonial sailors

Indian sailors, British ships Lascars, or Indian sailors, first began to be employed in small numbers from the seventeenth century by the East India Company, which was set up by private m ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
Asia
Student migrants: Cornelia Sorabji at Oxford

Indian students in Britain  From the middle of the nineteenth century, the small resident Asian population in Britain was augmented by an increasing number of Indian students at Brit ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
The Americas
From slavery to freedom: J. Gronniosaw's 'Narrative'

From slavery to freedom: Britain’s transatlantic slave trade From the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, over 12 million people were transported against their will from Africa t ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
Asia
Migrating home: 'mixed' children and the return of the nabobs of India

British migration to India: The East India Company From 1600 until 1858, Britain’s relations with India—including the temporary and permanent migration to India of British men ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Asia
Resisting racism: the Bradford 12 defence campaign

From South Asia to Bradford In the 1950s and 1960s South Asians from India and Pakistan (including East Pakistan, which would later become Bangladesh) were welcomed to Britain to work in ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
Europe
A London slum: Irish migration and its threat

A London slum in Kensington Owned by the respectable and wealthy local Bird family, Jennings' Buildings consisted of 81 two-story wooden tenements grouped around 5 narrow courts. The Bui ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Asia
Families divided: the campaign for Anwar Ditta and her children

Migration from the Commonwealth: Anwar Ditta and her family After the Second World War, Britain needed labour to help support its industries in the Midlands and the North. Citizens of Bri ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Africa
The African diaspora: global solidarity in inter-war Britain

Mussolini, Ethiopia and the new Roman Empire In early 1935, the murderous intentions of the dictator of fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini, to conquer the East African state of Ethiopia ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Asia
Chinese Limehouse and 'Mr Ma and Son'

British expansion in China and Chinese people in Britain The years leading up to the Boxer Uprising in 1899–1901 had seen a period of concerted British expansion in China. ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Asia
The East London Mosque

Worship in Britain: The East London Mosque The East London Mosque was established in premises in Commercial Road (London Borough of Tower Hamlets) in August 1941 – right i ...

Date
1750–1900
Region
Africa
Britain's merchant shipping: West African seafarers in Liverpool

The emergence of Britain’s merchant shipping industry As an island, Britain relied on maritime activity to maintain its economic and political power. Britain’s trade with ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Asia
Indian aristocrats and protest: the story of Sophia Duleep Singh

British India and South Asian migration  South Asians have been migrating to Britain for four centuries. This is due to a number of factors. They include push and pull elements such ...

Date
1500–1750
Region
Africa
African freedom in Tudor England: Dr Hector Nunes’ petition

Hector Nunes' petition The main source above gives examples of two related migrant groups: Portuguese conversos or Marranos (Jews, ostensibly converted to Christianity) and Africans.  ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
The Americas
Sailing from St. Vincent: the story of Jannett V. Creese

Recruiting for the NHS: Caribbean nurses in Britain  Jannett Creese was born in 1940 on Saint Vincent, a part of the Windward Island chain of the Caribbean. The oldest of thirteen ch ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
The Americas
Global Britons at war: from service to settlement

Britain's colonies and Dominions: a global war effort The British Empire and the Dominions of Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa made a considerable contributio ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
The Americas
London on the move: West Indian transport workers

From waterways to tube trains: transport workers in London The development of London has been shaped by transport. From the days of Thames watermen in the 17th century, through to modern ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Africa
Somali seafarer Ibrahim Ismaa’il: from Cardiff to the Cotswolds

Protecting trade routes: Britain in Somaliland The opening of the Suez Canal in 1870 was a turning point in the history of the British Empire. In order to reach prized trading posts in In ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Africa
On the picket line: Jayaben Desai from East Africa to Grunwick

Migration from South Asia to East Africa Jayaben Desai was born in April 1933 in Gujarat, a province in India. Upon her marriage to Tanzania-based Suryakant Desai, she migrated to Tanzani ...

Date
1900–2000s
Region
Asia
Communities in action: the Indian Workers' Association

Global roots The formation of the Indian Workers’ Association (IWA) in Coventry from 1938 onwards was the outcome of a number of activities involving immigrant workers that spans no ...

Date
AD43–1500
Region
Europe
England's Migrant King: Knut of Denmark

Viking raids: King Sweyn and Prince Knut Knut the Great (Knútr inn ríki in Old Norse) was a Danish prince, the son of Sweyn Forkbeard (Sveinn Tjúguskegg in Old Norse) ...