I’ve been a bit quiet on the socials and on the blog recently, as we’ve been moving. Thankfully it has only been a short move, 10 minutes down the road and across county borders, but to an area we know well and the kids haven’t had to move schools.
It has made me think of the moves that my ancestors undertook though and that ties in nicely with this week’s #52ancestors prompt of ‘immigration’.
There were a few ancestors I could have chosen. There is my husband’s great grandmother who travelled to Finland from Ingria, Russia in 1934 with her two children to escape Stalin’s ethnic cleansing of Ingrian Finns. There was also the migration of my Hylton line, first to America in the early 1700s and then to Jamaica.
I will no doubt cover both of those in future, but today I wanted to share with you the story of the ‘Windrush’ generation. Windrush is the name given to the migration of Caribbean born British citizens to Great Britain, their ‘motherland’. Three of my elders came to England in this migration: my paternal grandfather and my father from Jamaica, and my mother from Trinidad. I am a child of Windrush and this particular aspect of British and Caribbean history is important to me.
Normally I would focus on one or two ancestors and tell their story but I wanted to do something slightly different today. There are a lot of misconceptions and false information surrounding Windrush and I’d like to clear some of that up, at least around the events that led to Windrush.
The term Windrush actually didn’t exist when I was a child. I just knew that Britain was struggling in the wake of World War 2 and called on her citizens in the Empire to help. The Caribbean citizens answered and that is why so many came. Later, when it emerged that many British Caribbeans of that generation were being treated poorly by the British government, the terms ‘Windrush Generation’ and ‘Windrush Scandal’ were coined, named after the famous Empire Windrush which arrived in Tilbury Docks on 22nd June 1948. The Windrush Generation is defined as anyone who came to Britain between 1948 and 1971.
In truth the British Caribbean, particularly Jamaica, was still struggling post Emancipation. A report was commissioned in 1938 outlining the poor conditions but it’s release was delayed by the start of the war. Poor economic prospects combined with natural disasters (in particular the 1944 hurricane in Jamaica) prompted people to look elsewhere for work, namely the U.S.A. and Britain. The U.S.A. was close by and in need of migrant agricultural workers in the post-war era. Several of my indirect ancestors travelled there for work. On the other hand Britain was the motherland, children were taught about it in school and it was familiar to those who fought in WW2.
Britain was indeed facing a labour shortage, in 1946 it was estimated that between 900,000 and 1,346,000 additional workers were needed. However, the British government was only interested in white migrants to solve the post-war labour shortage. The Colonial Office actually dispatched a representative to the West Indies in 1947 to tell Caribbeans that the job adverts they were seeing in the papers were ‘paper vacancies’ i.e. fake adverts. This was despite Britain welcoming displaced Europeans and offering German Prisoners of War the opportunity to stay in Britain. The thought was that these white immigrants, despite the language and culture barriers, would be more likely to integrate into British society than British Caribbeans.
They also believed that that Caribbeans would be unsuited for work in Britain, giving the reasons that they would somehow find outdoor work to be too cold and work in the mines to be too hot. Apparently, there was a narrow temperature at which Caribbean people could work. It also completely ignored the fact that many Caribbeans who had fought in the war had managed fine when they were in unpressurised R.A.F. bombers flying over Germany, despite sub-zero temperatures.
Despite the efforts of the British government, Caribbean migrants still came to the UK, albeit in small numbers. In 1947 the SS Ormonde brought 108 Jamaicans in March and the Almanzora brought ~200 West Indians in December. By 1948 British Governors were warning that thousands of Jamaicans were applying for passports. There were concerns that more Caribbeans would be coming to the UK.
In May 1948 the HMT Empire Windrush was returning Jamaican R.A.F. service men home and relocating some Polish R.A.F. service men to Mexico. Notices were placed advertising passage to the UK for the return journey. The ship was due to first stop in Trinidad before continuing to Jamaica. This caused quite a stir in Britain. The Labour Prime Minister, Clement Atlee tried to prevent Empire Windrush from leaving Kingston. On the 27th May at 6 am Empire Windrush left Kingston having collected 194 passengers from Trinidad and 599 from Kingston (a good number of them ex-R.A.F. servicemen). 66 passengers then boarded in Mexico (Polish refugees) and 168 in Bermuda.
Contrary to the story we are often told, the passengers of the Empire Windrush were not invited, and they certainly were not wanted, not least by the Prime Minister. Atlee looked into diverting the ship to Kenya for the Caribbeans to pick peanuts rather than have them fill the labour shortage. 11 Labour MPs wrote to Atlee expressing their concerns stating ‘An influx of coloured people domiciled here is likely to impair the harmony, strength and cohesion of our public and social life and cause discord and unhappiness among all concerned’. Atlee responded that ‘It would be a great mistake to take the emigration of this Jamaican party to the United Kingdom too seriously’.
According to the 1951 census the Caribbean population in the UK was still very small, just 15,301 people listing their birth place as being in the Caribbean. Several factors would lead to an increase in the Caribbean population in the UK. In August 1951 Hurricane Charlie devastated Jamaica. 50,000 people lost their homes and 162 people died. The following year the U.S.A. passed the Immigration and Nationality Act which limited the number of visas allocated to the British West Indies to 800 a year, with only 100 of those allocated to Jamaica.
Winston Churchill had won the election in 1951 for the Conservatives and he asked government officials to find ways to limit the migration from the Caribbean. Five investigative studies were launched by both Conservative and Labour politicians to identify the problems caused by black migration to the U.K.; they were inconclusive. By 1954, the year my grandfather arrived, Churchill was warning of a ‘magpie society’ if the Caribbean migration continued and in 1955 he considered using ‘Keep Britain White’ as a campaign slogan.
However, despite the government’s efforts, by 1956 London Transport, British Rail, the NHS and The British Hotels and Restaurants Association were all actively recruiting from the Caribbean. The 1961 census revealed that the number of Caribbean born people in the UK had increased more than ten-fold, standing at 171,808. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act sought to stem the flow. Now Commonwealth citizens with passports issued by colonial governments would be subject to immigration controls if they wished to enter Britain.
There are kernels of truth to the story we are told. British Caribbeans did come in droves and they supported the health and transport sectors post-World War 2. They made a huge contribution to the ‘motherland’ and that should rightly be remembered and celebrated. But we should also remember and honour the difficulties they faced, the fact that they were not invited or welcomed (at least to start with) and that they faced racism from both the government and the public once they were here. I am glad that so much effort is being given to talking about Windrush these days, but I wish the truth of it all was more widely known.
N.B. This post is heavily influenced by David Olusoga’s book Black and British: A Forgotten History. It’s an amazing and comprehensive book and I urge you to read it, it’s available in audiobook format for those without the time or ability to sit and read.
References
BBC Caribbean. 2008. The Windrush Generation. BBC Caribbean. [Online] June 20, 2008. [Cited: April 28, 2023.] https://www.bbc.co.uk/caribbean/news/story/2008/06/080620_windrush2.shtml.
Bivins, Roberta. 2019. The Windrush Generation and the NHS: By the Numbers. People’s History of the NHS. [Online] June 3, 2019. [Cited: April 28, 2023.] https://peopleshistorynhs.org/the-windrush-generation-and-the-nhs-by-the-numbers/.
Greenwich, Royal Museums. 2023. The story of the Windrush. Royal Museums Greenwich. [Online] 04 28, 2023. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/windrush-histories/story-of-windrush-ship.
Goldsmiths University. Windrush: Arrival 1948 Passenger List, [Online] https://www.gold.ac.uk/windrush/passenger-list/ [Cited April 28, 2023.]
Levy, Winston. 1948. Postcard of Empire Windrush purchased by Winston Levy whilst on board. The British Library. [Online] May 6, 1948. [Cited: April 28, 2023.] https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/postcard-of-empire-windrush-purchased-on-board-ship-by-winston-levy.
Murdoch, H. Adlai. 2018. enoch powell, stuart hall, and post-windrush caribbean identity in britain. Small Axe. [Online] October 2018. [Cited: April 28, 2023.] http://smallaxe.net/sxsalon/discussions/enoch-powell-stuart-hall-and-post-windrush-caribbean-identity-britain.
Olusoga, David. 2018. “London is the place for me” David Olusoga on the Windrush generation. History Extra. [Online] June 14, 2018. https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/london-is-the-place-for-me-david-olusoga-on-the-windrush-generation/.
Olusoga, David. 2021. Black And British: A Forgotten History. 2021.
Our Migration Story. “London on the move: West Indian Transport Workers” [Online] [Cited: April 28, 2023.]
