Arrival of black immigrants in London

William Hogarth's engraving Four Times of the Day: Noon (1738) shows a black London resident.

This article charts the history of African immigration in London, England, from Roman times to the present day.

Roman London

Archeologists have found a spoon and a lamp with representations of Sub-Saharan African people dating from Roman times.^[1]

16th century

Early in the 16th century Africans arrived in London when Catherine of Aragon travelled to London and brought a group of her African attendants with her. Around the same time African named trumpeters, who served Henry VII and Henry VIII, came to London. When trade lines began to open between London and West Africa. The first record of an African in London was in 1593. His name was Cornelius. London’s residents started to become fearful of the increased black population. At this time Elizabeth I declared that black "Negroes and black Moors" were to be arrested and expelled from her kingdom, although this did not lead to actual legislation.^[2][3]

17th–18th centuries

During this era there was a small rise of black people arriving in London. Britain was involved with the tri-continental slave trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas. Black slaves were attendants to sea captains and ex-colonial officials as well as traders, plantation owners and military personnel. This marked growing evidence of the black presence in the northern, eastern and southern areas of London. There were also small numbers of free slaves and seaman from West Africa and South Asia. Many of these people were forced into beggary due to the lack of jobs and racial discrimination.^[4][5] There is evidence that black men and women were occasionally discriminated against when dealing with the law because of their skin colour. In 1737 George Scipio was accused of stealing Anne Godfrey's washing, the case rested entirely on whether or not Scipio was the only black man in Hackney at the time.^[6]

Around the 1750s London became the home of many of Blacks, Jews, Irish, Germans, and Huguenots. In 1764 The Gentleman's Magazine reported that there was 'supposed to be near 20,000 Negroe servants' -Evidence of the number of black residents in London has been found through registered burials. The people of London had widespread views that Black people in London were less than human; these views were expressed in slave sale advertisements. Leading black activists of this era included Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho and Quobna Ottobah Cugoano. With the support of other Britons these activists demanded that Blacks be freed from slavery. Supporters involved in this movements included workers and other nationalities of the urban poor. . At this time the slavery of whites was forbidden, but the legal statuses of these practices were not clearly defined. Free black slaves could not be enslaved, but blacks who were brought as slaves to Britain were considered the property of their owners. During this era Lord Mansfield declared that a slave who fled from his master could not be taken by force or sold abroad. This verdict fueled the numbers of Blacks that escaped slavery, and helped send slavery into decline. During this same period many slave soldiers who fought on the side of the British in the American Revolutionary War arrived in London. These soldiers were deprived of pensions and many of them became poverty-stricken and were reduced to begging on the streets. The Blacks in London lived among the whites in areas of Mile End, Stepney, Paddington and St Giles. The majority of these people did not live as slaves, but as servants to wealthy whites. Many became labeled as the "Black Poor" defined as former low wage soldiers, seafarers and plantation workers.^[7]

During the late 18th century there were many publications and memoirs written about the "black poor". One example is the writings of Equiano, who became an unofficial spokesman for Britain’s Black community. A memoir about his life is entitled, The Interesting Narratives of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Equiano became a landowner in Cambridgeshire and married Susannah Cullen, from Soham. Both his daughters were born and baptised there.

In 1787 4,000 blacks were transported from London for resettlement to the colony of Sierra Leone with help from the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor^[8]

19th century

Coming into the early 19th century, more groups of black soldiers and seaman were displaced after the Napoleonic wars and some settled in London. These settlers suffered and faced many challenges as did many black people in London. the slave trade was abolished completely in the British empire by 1834. The number of blacks in London was steadily declining with these new laws. Fewer blacks were brought into London from the West Indies and parts of Africa.^[7]

The 19th century was also a time when "scientific racism" flourished. Many white people claimed that they were the superior race and that blacks were not as intelligent as whites. They tried to hold up their accounts with scientific evidence, for example the size of the brain. Such claims were later proven false, but this was just one more obstacle for the blacks in London to hurdle over. The late 19th century effectively ended the first period of black immigration to London in notable numbers to Britain. This decline in immigration gave way to the gradual incorporation of blacks and their descendents into this overwhelmingly white society.

During the mid-19th century there were restrictions on African immigration. In the later part of the 19th century there was a buildup of small groups of black dockside communities in towns such as Canning Town,^[9] Liverpool, and Cardiff. This was a direct effect of new shipping links that were established with the Caribbean and West Africa.

Despite social prejudice and racist discrimination in Victorian England, some nineteenth-century black people living in England achieved exceptional success. Pablo Fanque, born poor as William Darby in Norwich, rose to become the proprietor of one of Britain's most successful Victorian circuses. He is immortalised in the lyrics of The Beatles song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" Another famous black Briton was William Davison, a conspirator executed in London for his role in the Cato Street Conspiracy against Lord Liverpool's government in 1820.

World War I

World War I was another small growth period for blacks in London. Their communities grew with the arrival of merchant seaman and soldiers. At the same time there is also a continuous presence of small groups of students from Africa and the Caribbean slowly immigrating into London. British working class communities where London’s first black immigrants live survive and now are one of the earliest documented places where black people lived

World War II

World War II marked another growth period for black immigrants into London and British societies. Many blacks from the Caribbean and West Africa arrived in small troups as wartime workers, merchant seamen, and servicemen from the army, navy, and air forces. It is estimated that approximately 20,000 black people mostly from around the British Empire lived in communities concentrated in the dock areas of the cities of London, Liverpool and Cardiff in total.

One of the black Londoners, Learie Constantine, a cricketer from Trinidad and welfare officer in the RAF, was refused service at a London hotel. He stood up for his rights and later was awarded compensation. That particular example is used by some to illustrate the slow change from racism towards acceptance and equality of all citizens in London.^[10]

Post-war period

In 1950 it is estimated there were no more than 20,000 non-white residents in Britain, almost all born overseas.^[11] Just after World War II ended the first groups of Britain’s post-war Caribbean immigrants started to emigrate and settle in London. There were an estimated 492 that were passengers on the SS Empire Windrush. These passengers settled in the area of Brixton which is now a prominently black district in Britain. From the 1950s into the 1960s there was a mass migration of workers from all over the English-speaking Caribbean, particularly Jamaica, who settled in Britain. These immigrants were invited to fill labour requirements in London’s hospitals, transportation venues and railway development. There was a continuous influx of African students, sportsmen, and businessmen mixed within British society .^[12] They are widely viewed as having been a major contributing factor to the rebuilding of the post-war urban London economy.

In 1962 the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed in Britain along with a succession of other laws in 1968, 1971, and 1981 that severely restricted the entry of Black immigrants into Britain. During this period it is widely argued that emergent blacks and Asians struggled in Britain against racism and prejudice. In 1975 a new voice emerged for the black London population; his name was David Pitt and he brought a new voice to the House of Lords. He spoke against racism and for equality in regards to all residents of Britain. With this new tone also came the opportunity for the black population to elect four Black members into Parliament.

By the end of the 20th century the number of black Londoners numbered half a million, according to the 1991 census. An increasing number of these black Londoners were London- or British-born. Even with this growing population and the first blacks elected to Parliament, many argue that there was still discrimination and a socio-economic imbalance in London among the Blacks. In 1992 the number of blacks in Parliament increased to six and in 1997 they increased their numbers to nine. There are still many problems that Black Londoners face; the new global and high-tech information revolution is changing the urban economy and some argue that it is driving unemployment rates among blacks up relative to non-blacks, something which, it is argued, threatens to erode the progress made thus far.^[7]

As of June 2007, the black population of London is 802,300 or 10.6% of the population of London. 4.3% of Londoners are Caribbean, 5.5% of Londoners are African and a further 0.8% are from other black backgrounds including American and Latin American. There are also 117,400 people who are mixed black and white.^[13] At the 2011 census, the total Black population of London stood at 1,088,640 or 13.3% of the population.^[14]

See also

• Historical immigration to Great Britain
• Black British
• Ethnic groups in London

References