Above: Happy Kiwi Girl

Your opinion: Should children and young people debate aspects of 'Britishness' within a school context?

YES (81)

75%

NO (23)

21%

DON'T KNOW (4)

3%

Total votes: 108

View poll

Who do you think you are?

Well, most people would tell me ‘I'm English' or ‘I'm British'. But who are the English and the British? If I take ‘modern' Britain to be the whole of this island, then are your origins Celt, originally from the Russian steppes, who brought iron-working skills? Or Pict (who originated from the Black Sea area)? The Romans began their conquest of the many tribes in England and parts of Wales in 54BC. 58,000 soldiers were stationed here, drawn from the Roman Empire which extended East to the Euphrates, North to central Europe and South to North Africa. On their discharge, many of these troops settled here.  When the Romans left, England split into about 10 separate kingdoms; from about 800AD, they were slowly united by the invading Saxons and Angles and Jutes, from (today's) Germany. Simultaneously, much of Scotland was invaded by Norse/Irish.  The Danish conquests began in the first half of the 11^th century; they were followed by the Normans, who permitted Jews, practised bankers, to settle here. Then came the Flemings, welcomed for their wool-working skills. In 1290, the Jews, who by then numbered 15,660, were expelled. The next arrivals were the Plantagenets from Anjou, who ruled England and parts of France.

The ravages of the Black Death from 1348 led to the use of foreign mercenaries in the army and the encouragement of immigration by highly skilled workers, for example from Flanders and Holland. From the 1580s England became the haven for European Protestants: Dutch, Walloon and especially the Huguenots. All brought new textile skills and introduced new industries such as glass and paper making. Gypsies, at first called ‘Egyptians', also began to settle here.

The growth of Empire under the imported Hanoverian monarchs led to both emigration (over 2 million emigrated between 1861 and 1911) and immigration. Domestic and other workers (some enslaved) were imported or brought by returning administrators, traders and businessmen; the colonial crews of the merchant ships discharged in British ports settled there. Irish labourers were predominant in the construction of canals from the 18^th century and the Irish Famine of the 1840s and 1850s also resulted in large-scale settlement of Irish peoples.

Britain again became the haven for refugees in the 19^th century: for Jews (mainly from Russia), Poles and Lithuanians. In 1905, now under a King George V, whose father was a German prince (the family changed its name to Windsor in 1917), Britain introduced its first Aliens Order to restrict immigration. But after WWI many of the colonial troops demobbed here and also many of the enlarged numbers of European and colonial seamen settled here.  This was replicated after WWII.  To achieve post-war recovery the 1947 Economic Survey reported that ‘we shall require a larger labour force then can be expected to be available'. Recruitment was begun in the Commonwealth. Between 1952 and 1961 almost a quarter million workers arrived from the Caribbean; about 20,000 from East and West Africa, and about 135,000 from the Indian sub-continent. Immigration and labour recruitment continued, so that the percentage of the population calculated to be of ‘New' Commonwealth origins rose from 2.7 in 1971 to 3.3 in 1976 and 7.1% by 2000.

So which of these ancestries do you claim when you say that you are ‘British'?

Written by:
Marika Sherwood
Founder of the Black and Asian Studies Association &
Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies
Website: http://www.blackandasianstudies.org.uk/


DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the writer's own and do not represent the views of either the Who Do We Think We Are (WDWTWA) consortium of partners (namely, the Royal Geographical Society with IBG, the Historical Association and Citizenship Consultant Paula Kitching) or the project's funding body, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

If you would like to comment on the content of this article, please send a response via the WDWTWA Blog (Have your say) or email wdwtwa@rgs.org.