1900-2010(4.3 Post-war Commonwealth)

Question 1

When was the Nationality Act and what was it?

Answer 1

The 1948 Nationality Act affirmed the legal right of Commonwealth citizens to settle in the UK

Question 2

Who came and why?

Answer 2

> British gov invited people to work in essential services and industries
conditions were bad in New Commonwealth countries with high unemployment and low wages
all citizens of the UK and Commonwealth were entitled to enter the country

Question 3

Why was there a labour shortage after WW2?

Answer 3

> WW2 deaths
NHS formed in 1948 but there was a shortage because drs, nurses, porters, cleaners were needed and there wasn’t money for that
transportation (more jobs were needed)
increase in emigration to Australia, Canada and New Zealand

Question 4

How did Brtain’s relationship with the wider world affect immigration?

Answer 4

> 2 major developments-the outcome of WW2 and the decline of the British Empire
these caused mass migration from the ‘New Commonwealth’, Britain’s former colonies in Africa, Asia and the West Indies

Question 5

What was their impact?

Answer 5

finish

Question 6

Myth: Black immigration started with the Windrush in 1948

Answer 6

Reality: black immigrants came before the windrush eg John Blanke was a trumpeter in the court of Henry the 8th

Question 7

Myth: Only men arrived on the Windrush

Answer 7

Reality: men and women arrived and many were ex-servicemen and women with happy memories of wartime Britain returning with high hopes

Question 8

Myth: The British government expected the arrival of the Windrush

Answer 8

Reality: they did but they didn’t expect that many

Question 9

Myth: The arrival of the Windrush opened the door to huge numbers of immigrants from the Carribean into Britain

Answer 9

Reality: after the WIndrush, migration from the Caribbean slowed down and most West Indians headed for the USA until 1952 when the USA imposed immigration controls

Question 10

How many Black immigrants had come to the UK by 1960?

Answer 10

100,000

Question 11

What sort of work did Black immigrants do?

Answer 11

> factories, nurses, bus conductors

Question 12

Describe 4 examples of discrimination/persecution faced by Black immigrants in this period

Answer 12

> many hotels, restaurants and dance halls refused entry to black people
in the mid-1950s less than 20% of landladies and only 15 out of 1,000 in Birmingham said they would let their rooms to non-white people
‘no blacks, no dogs, no irish’
although most West Indians were skilled, they were given menial jobs

Question 13

In which areas did most immigrants settle in London and Manchester? Why?

Answer 13

> rents were cheap and for safety and security they settled in Tottenham, Paddington, Handsworth, Chapeltown and Manchester

Question 14

What happened to Britain’s economy by the end of the 1950s?

Answer 14

> Britain’s economy was in trouble so there was stiff competition for jobs

Question 15

What effect did this have on immigrants-2 examples?

Answer 15

> immigrants were often balmed for the fact that migrant labour was no longer needed in such large numbers
non-whites were singled out for attack by fascist groups
in 1958 there were serious riots in Nottingham starting with an attack on a White woman and a Black man in a pub
major violence in Notting Hill when a gang beat up 5 black men with metal bars causing them serious injury

Question 16

Describe how some politicians and the press stirred anti-immigrant feeling

Answer 16

> Daily Sketch said ‘for years white people have been tolerant. Now their tempers are up’
Labour MP Maurice Edelman wrote in the Daily Mail ‘should we let them keep pouring in?’
the Daily Mirror called for greater powers to deport immigrants

Question 17

Describe what happened to Kelso Cochrane

Answer 17

> in May 1959, Kelso Cochrane a 32-yr-old Antinguan was walking home after having a thumb that had been fractured at work treated at a hospital
he was attacked by a White gang and stabbed to death
over 1000 people white and black lined the streets for the funeral
killer’s name was an open secret and was finally named publicaly in 2011 but no one was charged with the murder

Question 18

What were the terms of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act and what was its unintended outcome?

Answer 18

> holders of Commonwealth passports no longer had the right to live and work in the UK and had to apply for a limited number of employment ‘vouchers’ which went to White Australians, Canadians or New Zealanders
immigration shot up because men wanted to bring the rest of their families here before the 1962 Act had passed

Question 19

How many West Indians came on the Windrush?

Answer 19

492

Question 20

What happened in the ‘beat the ban rush’ between 1960 and 1961?

Answer 20

> number of Commonwealth immigrants rose from 58,000 to 136,000

Question 21

What does the term ‘salt, soap, soy’ mean?

Answer 21

Chineses workers went from seafaring to the laundry business and then to the family-run takeaway restuarants that spread from town to town across the UK

Question 22

What is chain migration?

Question 23

Why did many people emigrate the UK during this period?

Answer 23

> in the 60s, half a million emigrated to Australia

Question 24

What did the Royal Commission on Population

Answer 24

> in 1949 the Royal Commission on Population recommended that the UK should take in 140,000 young adults to prevent a decline in population

Question 25

Who were the National Front group, when were they formed and what did they want?

Answer 25

> in 1966 a racist and neo-fascist party was laucnhed calling for immigrants to be deported

Question 26

Paraphrase Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech from 1968

Answer 26

> the effect of immigration on White people
they found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their homes and neighbourhoods changed, plans and prospects for the future, they found themselves trangers in their own country and they were told they were unwanted

Question 27

Bristol bus boycott

Question 28

Notting Hill Carnival

Question 29

Claudia Jones

Question 30

What was the impact of Powell’s speech

Answer 30

> for the first time people in Britain who were non-white started to feel people being openly hostile to them
he was an MP so people thought it was okay
open racism was more socially acceptable

Question 31

What were the terms of the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act?

Answer 31

> banned entry to anyone without a father or grandfather born in the UK
designed to stop the influx from Kenya and after an outcry, they were let in but the law remained

Question 32

What did the 1971 Immigration Act do?

Answer 32

> replaced vouchers with work permits for specific time periods so staying in the country was only temporary
so White Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians could enter freely in large numbers but people of colour with the same passports couldn’t

Question 33

Why did large numbers of Kenyan Asians start to arrive in Britain?

Answer 33

> because newly independent East African governments were expelling Asian residents who had been brought over by the British 100 years earlier as indentured labourers

Question 34

Why did Britain accept the Kenyan Asians in the end?

Answer 34

Because there was an outcry so they were let in but the law remained

Question 35

Give one example of a Kenyan Asian refugee who became very successful

Answer 35

Gurinder Chadha who was the director of the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham

Question 36

When were the first 2 Race Relations Act and what did they say?

Answer 36

> 1965 made some forms of racial discrimination illegal
1968 was stronger and extended to employment and housing; it’s aim was the integration of immigrant communities

Question 37

What was the 1976 Race Relations Act?

Answer 37

> set up a commision for racial equality to encourage better relations between ethnic groups; to use the law to prevent racial discrimination, promote racial equality and equal opportunity and to raise public awareness of racial injustice

Question 38

When was the Crime and Disorder Act and what did it say?

Answer 38

> 1998 and it made courts punish crimes more severely if they were aggravated by racism or against a person’s religion

Question 39

What did the race relations legislation not do?

Answer 39

> didn’t address instituitional racism or even recognise its existence

Question 40

Who were the National Front?

Answer 40

> protest against any type of non-white immigration

Question 41

What was the Southall Youth Movement?(SYM)

Answer 41

> formed to defend members of the community in response to the racist murder of young Sikh by a gang of white men in 1976

Question 42

Who was Altab Ali?

Answer 42

in 1978 Altab Ali was murdered in East London when the National Front was increasingly active in the area
>7000 people mainly young Bangladeshies marched in protest to Hyde Park after his funeral

Question 43

What was Rock Against Racism?

Answer 43

> 1976 a gorup of activits set it up to oppose racism by bringing people together through music
brought raggae bands on the same stage as white bands and the fans danced together and anti-racism became fashionable