Adrian C Smith
Task 1 (B)
In this part of my assignment I am going to summarise the history that led Britain to becoming a multicultural society. I am going to summarise the key events that made Britain change from the white and singular culture into a mixed multicultural society. I believe the main events that changed Britain’s culture into the wide multicultural country are; the Slave Trade, refugees from the Nazi oppression arrive in the UK and Windrush.
During the second half of the 17th century, trades to and from Britain increased massively. The main trades into Britain where tobacco, sugar, spices and textiles. The English ships would sail to West Africa where they exchanged Iron goods, textiles and guns for African Slaves. Then the British took the black Africans to America to sell them to help in the plantations or as servants. Millions of people from Africa where illegally transported in a cramped ships to America to sell. Then the British sailors would sail back to Britain with the sugar and tobacco to sell, however the British sailors also brought some African salves back to Britain to sell. This trade route of going to West Africa then to America/Caribbean then Back to Britain was named the “Triangular Trade”. Overall 20 million slaves were ruthlessly captured and sold. The wealth that the “Triangular Trade” made to the ports and made population of the ports grow, it also made the surroundings become very rich. For example “ In 1700 Liverpool had a population of about 5,000 people. One hundred years later, it was a major transatlantic port with a population of over 80,000.” This meant that the area became very rich and this was a popular place for slaves to be bought and other sailors from other countries to temporary live or permanently live.
Source taken from ‘BRITISH HISTORY encyclopaedia’ page 156
Another major event in history that changed Britain’s singular culture into a multicultural society was the potato famine in Ireland. The famine was in the 1800’s. Many times before there was crop shortages due to crop failure, but in 1845 a fungus affected the potato crop, as the people at this time in the whole Ireland was very poor, their main diet consisted of potato. Because of this millions of people emigrated to escape the famine, mainly people emigrated from 1846 to 1849. Although many of the Irish peasants travelled to United States of America also thousands travelled to Britain. In Liverpool where a lot of the Irish emigrated there are still thousands of Irish people living there and they bought their Irish culture with. It is the second largest ethnic group not including White British to live there. Overall ‘because of the Irish potato famine 750,000 emigrated or died of starvation.’
Statistic taken from
Second statistic taken from ‘BRITISH HISTORY encyclopaedia’ page 184
An additional event that changed Britain’s cultural society was the Refugees from the Nazi oppression; the Nazis in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were persecuting the Jews before and during the start of the Second World War. Many left in great fear of being killed; 60,000 took shelter in Britain. The Nazis believed that the other races such as the Jewish race were killing off the German ‘Superior’ race, also known as the Aryan race. As they immigrated to Britain the Jews tended to live together and they started up small Jewish communities and they bought some of their religious beliefs and their culture to Britain, because of this they started to influence the surrounding areas.
A further historical event to change the cultural society was the Empire Windrush. Empire Windrush was an old War ship that Britain sent out to Jamaica, which was a British colony, for the Jamaicans to have a new start by employing them to re-build Britain after the Second World War in 1948. This was the first major West Indian immigrant to arrive in Britain after the world war. Many different English colonies fought for England, such as the Indian and Jamaica. As these different colonies fought for Britain, there were no restrictions to move between one part of the British Empire to another. This continued until the legislation was passed in 1962.
At this time Britain wanted desperately for people to come and help rebuild the country after the War. So many people came to answer Britain’s call for help from the British colonies, empire Windrush was believed to be the start of the thousands of Caribbean to come over to Britain, many Caribbean’s came immediately however the number rapidly grow, to the end of the 50’s 27,550 migrants came over to Britain. By the 1960’s the number of migrants had risen to 49,650 and the number grow to 66,300 in the next year Britain had to introduce a Act to limit the amount entering Britain. This was named the Commonwealth Immigrants Act passed in 1962. After the act the number dramatically dropped to 31,880 per year then slowly went down further to less than 10,000 in the average year.
However, this had a major consequences, because in Caribbean they brought up to believe they were British, but here they were treated like social outcasts because of their vibrant coloured clothing and accent. Hatred was to grow towards the single men who had come. Many black single men came to Britain and at first many had relationships with White British people, the White British men started to physically attack the men who was with a white women.
At this stage in time after the Second World War many people came to Britain to answer Britain’s call. For example ‘130,000 Poles arrived during the first few years after the war’ another example is ‘14,000 Hungarians came to British looking for work… ’. This added many new cultures to Britain and with large numbers the cultures spread. New music and foods was bought into the area.
British colonies also answered the call for many people to help re-build Britain. They came because of the shortage of workers to work in the new factories, which were only working slowly because the owners couldn't find enough workers. Also had a new Health Service, which was taking on new workers all the time. England controlled many different colonies that included: India, many countries in Africa and in the Caribbean. Many men from these colonies had been soldiers in the war and worked in factories to produce things for Britain to help fight the war, and as England had controlled these colonies they could speak some English, as the pay in England for work was high than in the colonies. Therefore many came over to Britain to work. Like in Windrush the Commonwealth Immigrants Act passed in 1962 stopped the great numbers coming from the different colonies to Britain to work.
In 1968 an Act was made which made it illegal to refuse housing, employment or Public Service to people because of their ethnic background. This had a huge effect on the public services, as before the act hardly any ethnic minority were allowed to join but after the act many ethnic and coloured people joined.
In 1972 Idi Amin expelled all Indian and Pakistani citizens from Uganda, he believed that God told him in a dream to expel all Indians and Pakistani who owned almost all of the business. Officially 40,000 Indians and Pakistanis left, 29,000 came to Britain. Many set up business in Britain, few where similar to the shops in Uganda this introduced small part of Uganda’s selling culture into Britain’s Selling and buying culture.
In 1990 ethnic cleansing occurred in Bosnia Croatia Yugoslavia and Serbia. The poorly armed Muslims, who comprised more than 40% of the population. In a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” carried out mostly by the Serbs, thousands of Muslims were killed, and many more fled Bosnia and many came to the United Nations, which includes Britain.
Above is a summary of what I believe to be the main key events in British history that changed Britain into a Multicultural society. I believe that because of immigration Britain has so many wide and different cultures that it has made Britain an exciting and diverse place to live. However, immigration help sparked off major racist political parties, for example British National Party how believe fundamentally in keeping British ‘White British’ and nothing else. But because of immigration Britain has become a dynamic and exciting place, and has benefited in areas like cuisine and music.
Bibliography;
Adrian C Smith
Source taken from ‘BRITISH HISTORY encyclopaedia’ page 156 and 184
Statistic taken from
