Commonwealth migration after 1945
The Windrush Generation and the British Nationality Act 1948
On 22 June 1948, passengers came ashore from the Empire Windrush at Tilbury, Essex. The ship’s passenger list records 1,027 people, and 802 of them gave a Caribbean country as their last home; most were Jamaican. The figure of 492 that is often quoted came from press reports that counted only some of the men on board. They had a legal right to be there: they were born in British colonies, so they were already British subjects, and the British Nationality Act passed later in 1948 confirmed that Commonwealth citizens could come to Britain. They were not economic migrants in the traditional sense — many were returning to a country they had served in wartime, or were answering advertisements placed by British employers struggling to fill jobs in the NHS, London Transport and other public services.
Sam King was among the Windrush passengers. He had served in the RAF during the Second World War, returned to Jamaica, and came back to Britain on the Windrush to build a new life. His story — skilled wartime service, post-war migration, community leadership — represents the wider experience of the Windrush generation, who came not as guests but as citizens exercising their legal rights.
Caribbean migrants also came in large numbers from Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana and other islands, attracted by opportunities in the post-war British economy. The NHS, founded in 1948, actively recruited nurses from the Caribbean: the first generation of Black British NHS nurses came predominantly from Barbados and Jamaica. London Transport recruited in Barbados from 1956 onwards. South Asian migration also accelerated: partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and subsequent economic pressures drove migration from Punjab, Gujarat and Sylhet to British textile towns including Bradford, Leicester and Coventry.
Experiences of the Windrush Generation
The experience of Caribbean and South Asian migrants in 1950s and 1960s Britain was shaped by both opportunity and systematic discrimination. Many faced housing discrimination — “No Coloured” signs in lodging houses were common in London, Birmingham and Bristol. Discrimination in employment was widespread and legal: the Race Relations Act did not come until 1965, and even then its powers were limited. Despite legal citizenship, many migrants were treated as racially inferior by employers, landlords and public institutions.
Claudia Jones founded what became the Notting Hill Carnival in 1959, in direct response to the race riots of the previous year. The Caribbean community created institutions — churches, community organisations, the Notting Hill Carnival — that expressed cultural identity and resisted the hostility they faced. Jones also edited the West Indian Gazette, Britain’s first major Black newspaper.
In August and September 1958, violent race riots erupted in Notting Hill, west London, and simultaneously in Nottingham. White mobs attacked Caribbean homes and people over several days. The riots were triggered by tensions over housing, employment and inter-racial relationships, fuelled by far-right groups including the White Defence League. The police response was criticised as inadequate. The riots shocked the country and led directly to calls for immigration controls — the wrong lesson, argued many: the problem was the violence of the attackers, not the presence of the attacked.
The Learie Constantine case was an earlier signal of the discrimination Caribbean migrants faced. In 1943, the Imperial Hotel in London refused to allow Constantine — one of the most celebrated cricketers in the world — and his family to stay because of their race. Constantine sued and won damages. His case attracted attention but did not change the law, which offered no general protection against racial discrimination until 1965.
Immigration Controls and the Political Backlash
The 1958 riots accelerated pressure for immigration controls. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 introduced the first controls on Commonwealth migration — requiring employment vouchers rather than free entry. This was a significant reversal of the 1948 Act’s open door. The 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act went further, targeting Kenyan Asians — many of whom held British passports — by admitting freely only those with a parent or grandparent born in Britain. Tens of thousands of Kenyan Asians held British passports but had no such ancestor, so their passports no longer guaranteed them entry. The Immigration Act of 1971 later made this ancestry rule the formal test, called “patriality”.
Enoch Powell, a Conservative MP, delivered his “Rivers of Blood” speech in April 1968, predicting racial conflict on a catastrophic scale if immigration continued. The speech was considered inflammatory by most mainstream politicians — Edward Heath sacked Powell from the Shadow Cabinet the next day — but opinion polls showed substantial public support for Powell’s position. The speech accelerated the shift to immigration restriction and poisoned British political discourse on race for decades. Roy Jenkins, as Home Secretary, simultaneously pursued race relations legislation to promote equality within Britain even as immigration was being restricted.
In August 1972, Idi Amin expelled approximately 80,000 Asians from Uganda; about 28,000 held British passports and were admitted to Britain, where the Uganda Resettlement Board, set up in August 1972, received them. The Ugandan Asians, though arriving as refugees, quickly established themselves in British business and professional life. Leicester, where many settled, resisted initially — the city council even placed adverts in Ugandan newspapers warning people not to come — but within a generation, the community had transformed the city’s economy and cultural life.
Alongside the restrictive immigration Acts, Parliament also passed legislation intended to combat racial discrimination. The Race Relations Act of 1965 was the first law in British history to prohibit racial discrimination in public places; it created the Race Relations Board to investigate complaints. The 1968 Act extended protections to housing and employment — precisely the areas where Caribbean and Asian migrants faced the most systematic discrimination. The Race Relations Act of 1976 created the Commission for Racial Equality and strengthened enforcement.
The double movement — restricting entry while improving conditions for those already here — reflected a contested political settlement. Home Secretary Roy Jenkins described his vision as “not a flattening process of assimilation but equal opportunity accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance.” This formulation of integration rather than assimilation would define British multicultural policy for the following decades.