Migration Watch says in a briefing paper: The history of migration to the UK Briefing Paper 6.1
www.migrationwatchuk.org
1. There was relatively little migration into Britain (other than from
Ireland) until New
Commonwealth immigration began in the 1950s.
However, a look back at how Britain was populated shows that immigration
(or the movement of people from one place to another to live) has been going on
since people left Africa, hundreds of thousands of years ago, and into what
became the UK for 40,000 years. (See page on prehistoric Britain).
No complete population censuses were taken until
the 18th century, thus estimates of population levels are notoriously
unreliable. Estimated levels vary as a number of "multiplier" factor
often have to be taken into account - estimated population density, ages of
marriage, and perhaps most importantly the number of people denoted by a
"hearth" in those medieval tax surveys that do provide hard numbers.
Other expansions of the few hard figures we have are frequently done by using
actuarial data from modern world societies with population structures like that
of medieval Europe, for instance figures derived from Indian population surveys
earlier in the 20th century.
Population Estimates (in millions) at specified
times 500-1450
The
information here is taken from Josiah C. Russell, "Population in Europe:,
in Carlo M. Cipolla, ed., The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol. I: The
Middle Ages, (Glasgow : Collins/Fontana, 1972), 25-71
AREA 500 650
1000 1340 1450
Greece/Balkans 5
3 5 6
4.5
Italy 4 2.5
5 10 7.3
Spain/Portugal 4
3.5 7 9
7
Total - South 13 9
17 25 19
France/Low countries 5
3 6 19
12
British Isles 0.5
0.5 2 5
3
Germany/Scandinavia 3.5
2 4 11.5
7.3
Total - West/Central 9 5.5
12 35.5 22.5
Slavia. 5 3
---Russia 6
8 6
---Poland/Lithuania 2
3 2
Hungary 0.5 0.5
1.5 2 1.5
Total -East 5.5 3.5
9.5 13 9.3
TOTAL EUROPE 27.5 18
38.5 73.5 50
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/short_history_of_immigration.stm
The early story of the British Isles is one of
colonisation. Firstly, Celtic and Pict tribes arrived and formed the first
communities in the British Isles.
Then came the Romans. In 250AD, Rome sent a
contingent of black legionnaires, drawn from the African part of the empire, to
stand guard on Hadrian’s Wall.
There is no evidence that these men stayed in
Britannia and when the Romans finally quit in the fifth century, the way was
clear for the Germanic tribes that would slowly become the English.
Four hundred years after the Jutes, Angles and Saxons
colonised modern-day southern England, the Vikings arrived, bringing a
distinctive new influence to the cultural pot. The Vikings' sphere of influence
was northern Britain and modern-day East Anglia.
The most dramatic of these immigrations was the Norman
Conquest in 1066. The Normans, descended from Vikings who had settled in
France, brought with them their early-French language which would fundamentally
change the direction of English, government and law.
