Human Traffic: Race and Post-War Migration Policy

THE 2019 ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLIN MATTHEW MEMORIAL LECTURE

PART OF OUR BLACK HISTORY MONTH SERIES

In the years after 1945 successive British governments set out to weaponise the nation’s immigration policy. To maintain historic ties to the Old Commonwealth, and shore up Britain's position as a ‘world power’ they encouraged and even subsidised the emigration of over a million Britons while simultaneously recruiting thousands of East Europeans for new lives in Britain. 

Yet in 1948, with the arrival of the Empire Windrush and the passing of the British Nationality Act, another, unplanned and unwanted migration was set in train.