Migration

• English wool was known for being good quality and this was sold in Flanders where Flemish weavers turned the wool into cloth and clothes


  1200s
• King Henry III invited Flemish weavers to England so they could turn raw English wool into cloth without sending it out of the country. However lots migrated from Flanders who were not weavers, so one month later Henry III expelled them

  1270
• King Edward III invited Flemish migrants again. He especially wanted weavers and beer brewers to come


  1331
• Many Flemish migrants had set up successful wool weaving, clothes making or beer brewing business


  By 1500
• The Pope changed the usury laws for Christians meaning Christian money lenders could charge interest. Soon rich Italian Christians started loaning money


  c.1200
• English nobles and later, English Kings, started to loan money from Italian moneylenders


  1220
• Italian moneylenders were invited to migrate to England by Edward I. Many came. They set up England's first banks, in London, then in other cities later


  1270s
• Soon these Italian moneylenders were joined by merchants from Venice, who would sail to Africa and Asia to buy and sell goods. They were invited by English Kings to sell these exotic goods in England


  1400s
• William the Conqueror invited Jews to come to England


  1070
• The Statute of Liberties ensured the King protected all Jews, and Jews could seek protection in his castle

  1100
• Murder of Hugh of Lincoln – a Jew name Copin was accused of the murder. Rumours spread and King Henry III ordered 93 Jews to be arrested


  1255
• Palm Sunday Massacre in 1263, 400 Jews were murdered


  1263
• Edward I took away the protections of Jews in the Statute of Jewry, forbidding them to collect interest on loans


  1275
• Edward I expelled all 3,000 Jews from England


  1290
• Usury


  When a moneylender charges interest (extra costs) to someone paying back a loan (borrowed money). This was a crime for Christians but not for Jews
• Tallage


  Large taxes applied only to the Jewish community. In 1227, Jews had to raise £25,000 to pay Edward I
• Blood Libel


  An anti-Semitic trend of accusations that a Jew has murdered a Christian in order to use their blood in a religious ritual e.g. baking of Passover Bread
• Letters of Denization


  Official government letters saying a migrant can be treated with the same rights and privileges as if they had been born in England (if they swore they were no longer loyal to the ruler of their original country)
• Enslaved man Francis Baber was sent as a gift to Dr Samuel Johnson in London


  1752
• The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor to give out food and clothing. The Committee raised 790 shillings (around £70,000 today)

  1786
• Black people begging in the streets were forcibly rounded up

  1787
• 401 Africans sail to Sierra Leone (only 268 survive)


  1787
• Boxer, William Richmond (ex-slave from US), is an usher at George IV's crowning

  1821
• Nelson's Column is built, featuring a plaque with a black soldier at the battle of Trafalgar


  1840
• Ship owners are fined £30 if a lascar was left behind in Britain


  1854
• Strangers' Home for Asiastics, African and South Sea Islanders is set up


  1856
• The Blue Funnel Line is established. A steamline ship that journeyed between China and England


  1866
• 'Lascar Transfer Officers' were appointed to escort ensure lascars went on a return trip to India


  1871
• London's first Chinese community emerges in Limehouse, London


  1880s
• Jews could serve on juries and work as lawyers

  1833
• The potato blight struck –8.5 million people were surviving on mostly potatoes


  1845
• The blight returns and wipes out 75% or Ireland's potatoes


  1846
• Carlo Gatti arrives in England and is the first ice-cream maker


  1847
• Italy becomes united as a country for the first time, causing conflict between north and south


  1861
• In London, police attacked a mob of Navvies injuring several hundred


  1687
• Mass influx of poor, Yiddish speaking Jews from Russia


  1881
• Navvies


  Labourers who worked on the canals, roads and trainlines. Many were Irish
• Lascars


  Indian sailors who were paid a mere 5% of the white sailors' wages
• T.P. O'Connor


  An Irish MP elected in 1885
• Organ-Grinders


  Italian migrants who worked producing music on the streets