Anglophone Worlds from a Historical and Cultural Perspective: United Kingdom and Ireland

UNIT 2 The People

UNIT 2 1: The People

1. Introduction

The contemporary British are consequently composed of people from worldwide

origins and are divided into what eventually became the English, Scots, Welsh and
(Northern) Irish.
– These populations have mixed roots derived from diverse settlement and
immigration patterns over time.
– There has also been considerable internal migration throughout the British Isles
(particularly in the nineteenth century) as individuals moved between the four
nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
– In a similar integration process, the English language, which binds most of the people
together linguistically in its various dialect forms, is a mixture of Germanic, Romance
and other world languages.

2. Early settlement to AD 1066

• The first people were probably Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) nomads from mainland
Europe, who used rudimentary stone implements.

• Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) settlers from about 8300 BC arrived in the transitional
period between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic eras and between the end of the last
glacial period and the beginnings of agriculture in the Middle East.

• Neolithic (New Stone Age) arrivals from 4000 BC had more advanced skills in stone
carving, began to form settled agricultural communities and to tame wild animals, and
the population increased. Neolithic groups built large wooden, soil and stone
monuments, like Stonehenge and Avebury, and later arrivals (the Beaker Folk)
probably introduced a Bronze Age culture.

• From about 600 BC there was a movement of so-called Celtic tribes into the islands
from western Europe, who have been credited with bringing an Iron Age civilization
with them. The Celts were not a unified group, had at least two main languages and
were divided into different, scattered tribes, who often fought with one another. Varied
Celtic civilizations dominated the islands until they were overcome by warring Belgic
tribes (also of Celtic origin) around 200 BC.

• The Belgic tribes were subjected to a series of Roman expeditions from 55 BC. The
eventual Roman military occupation of the islands (except for Ireland and most of

1 Oakland, John 2011 (7th edition)). British Civilization. Introduction. London: Routledge

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Anglophone Worlds from a Historical and Cultural Perspective: United Kingdom and Ireland
UNIT 2 The People

Scotland) lasted from AD 43 until AD 409. The term 'Britain' probably derives from
the Greek and Latin names given to England and Wales by the Romans, although it
may stem from Celtic originals. It is argued that the Romans did not mix well with the
existing population and that their lasting influence was slight. However some Christian
practices spread throughout the islands; political and legal institutions were
introduced; new agricultural methods and produce were imported; and there is
physical evidence of the Roman presence throughout much of England.

• After the Roman withdrawal in AD 409, Germanic tribes such as the Angles (from
which the name 'England' is supposedly derived), the Saxons and the Jutes from north-
western Europe invaded the country. They either mixed with the existing population
or pushed it westwards, although the degree of this displacement has been
disputed. The country was divided into seven separate and often warring Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms in England, with largely Celtic areas in Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

• These regions suffered from Scandinavian (Viking) military invasions in the eighth
and ninth centuries AD, until the Scandinavians were defeated in England, Scotland
and Ireland in the tenth to eleventh centuries. The Scandinavian presence, after initial
fleeting raids, was reflected in some permanent settlement, integration of peoples,
farming, political institutions and the adaptation of Scandinavian words.

• Early English history was completed when the Anglo-Saxons were defeated by
French-Norman invaders at the Battle of Hastings in AD 1066 and England was
subjected to their rule. The Norman Conquest was a watershed in English history
and marked the last successful external military invasion of the country. It influenced
the English people and their language (since French was the language of the nobility
for the next 300 years) and initiated many social, legal and institutional frameworks,
such as a feudal system, which were to characterize future British society.

• The early settlement and invasion movements substantially affected the developing
fabric of British life and formed the first tentative foundations of the modern state.
Today there are few British towns which lack any physical evidence of the successive
changes. The invaders also influenced social, legal, economic, political, agricultural,
cultural and administrative institutions and contributed to the evolving language.

3. Growth and immigration up to the twentieth century

• England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland had developed more clearly defined identities
and geographical areas by the twelfth century, although 'tribal' and royalist conflict
(rather than national unity) continued in the four nations. English monarchs tried to
conquer or ally themselves with these countries as protection against threats from
within the islands and from continental Europe, as well as for increased power and

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Anglophone Worlds from a Historical and Cultural Perspective: United Kingdom and Ireland
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possessions. Internal colonization and political unification of the islands gradually

created the British state.
– Ireland became part of the United Kingdom in 1801 but, after periods of violence and
political unrest, was divided in 1921 into the Irish Free State (eventually to become
the Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland (which remains part of the United
Kingdom).
– Wales, after Roman control, remained a Celtic country, although influenced by
Anglo-Norman and Angevin-Plantagenet England. Apart from a period of freedom
in 1402-7, Wales was integrated legally and administratively with England by Acts of
Union between 1536 and 1542.
– Scotland remained independent until the political union between the two countries
in 1707, when the creation of Great Britain (England/Wales and Scotland) took place.
However, Scotland and England had shared a common monarch since 1603 when
James VI of Scotland became James I of England (the dynastic Union of the Two
Crowns).
– England, Wales and Scotland had meanwhile become predominantly Protestant in
religion as a result of the European Reformation and Henry VIII's break with Rome.
Ireland remained Catholic and tried to distance itself from England, thus adding
religion to colonialism as a foundation for future problems.

• Contemporary Britain therefore is not a single, homogeneous country but rather a

recent and potentially unstable union of four old nations. The English frequently
treated their Celtic neighbours as colonial subjects rather than equal partners and
Englishness became a powerful strand in developing concepts of Britishness, because
of the dominant role that the English have played in the formation of Britain.
– However, despite the tensions and bitterness between the four nations, there was
internal migration between them.
– Immigration from abroad into the British Isles also continued due to such factors as
religious and political persecution, trade, business and employment.

• In addition to political integration, internal migration and immigration from

overseas, Britain's growth and the mixing of its people were also conditioned first by a
series of agricultural changes and second by a number of later industrial revolutions.
– Agricultural developments started with Neolithic settlers and continued with the
Saxons in England who cleared the forests, cultivated crops and introduced
inventions and equipment which remained in use for centuries. Their open-field
system of farming (with strips of land worked by local people) was later replaced by
widespread sheep-herding and wool production. Britain expanded agriculturally and
commercially from the eleventh century, and also created manufacturing industries.
Agricultural and commercial developments were reflected in changing population

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UNIT 2 The People

concentrations.
– A second central development in British history was a number of industrial
revolutions that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These
transformed Britain from an agricultural economy into an industrial and
manufacturing country. Processes based on coal-generated steam power were
discovered and exploited. Factories and factory towns were needed to mass-produce
new manufactured goods. Villages in the coalfields and industrial areas grew rapidly
into manufacturing centres. A drift of population away from the countryside began
in the late eighteenth century as people sought work in urban factories to escape rural
poverty and unemployment.
– The agricultural population changed in the nineteenth century into an industrialized
workforce. The greatest concentrations of people were now in London and the
industrial areas of the Midlands, south Lancashire, Merseyside, Clydeside, Tyneside,
Yorkshire and South Wales.
– The industrial revolution reached its height during the early nineteenth century. It
did not require foreign labour because there were enough skilled trades among
British workers and a ready supply of unskilled labourers from Wales, Scotland,
Ireland and the English countryside.
– By the end of the nineteenth century Britain was the world's leading industrial nation
and among the richest.

4. Immigration from 1900

• Although immigrants historically had relatively free access to Britain, they could be
easily expelled, having no legal rights to protect them; and entry restrictions were
increasingly imposed.
– In the early twentieth century, Jews and Poles escaped persecution in Eastern Europe
and settled in the East End of London, which has always attracted newcomers.

• As a result of the 1930s world recession and the Second World War, refugees first
from Nazi-occupied Europe and later from Soviet bloc countries in addition to
economic immigrants entered Britain in spite of entry controls. After the war, refugees
such as Poles, Latvians and Ukrainians among other nationalities chose to stay in
Britain. Later in the twentieth century, other political refugees arrived, such as
Hungarians, Czechs, Chileans, Libyans, East African Asians, Iranians, Vietnamese and
other Eastern Europeans. Italian, French, German, Irish, Turkish, Cypriot, Chinese,
Spanish and Commonwealth economic immigrants increasingly entered the country.
These groups (and their descendants) today form sizeable ethnic minorities and are
found throughout Britain. Such newcomers have often suffered from discrimination at
various times, some more than others.

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Anglophone Worlds from a Historical and Cultural Perspective: United Kingdom and Ireland
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• Public and political concern in the post-war period turned to issues of race and colour,
which dominated the immigration debate for the rest of the twentieth century and
focused on non-white Commonwealth immigration. Before the Second World War,
most Commonwealth immigrants to Britain had come from the largely white Old
Commonwealth countries of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and from South
Africa. Yet all Commonwealth citizens (white and non-white) continued to have
relatively free access and were not treated as aliens.
– From the late 1940s, increasing numbers of people from the non-white New
Commonwealth nations of India, Pakistan and the West Indies came to Britain, often
at the invitation of government agencies, to fill the manual and lower-paid jobs of an
expanding economy.

• Non-white communities have increased and work in a broad range of occupations.

Some, particularly Indian Asians and the Chinese, have been successful in economic
and professional terms. Others (such as Bangladeshis and some West Indians and
Pakistanis) have experienced problems with low-paid jobs, educational disadvantage,
unemployment, decaying housing in the inner cities, isolation, alienation and
discrimination (including tensions between other non-white ethnic groups).
– It is argued that Britain possesses a deep-rooted (or institutional) racism based on
the legacy of empire and notions of racial superiority, which has hindered the
integration of the non-white population into the larger society.
– An opposing argument (frequently employed after the 7 July 2005 London
bombings) is that ethnic communities should confront their own internal problems
(such as generational conflicts, religious extremism and gender issues) and integrate
more with the majority population and its institutions.

• So many New Commonwealth immigrants were coming to Britain that from 1962
governments treated most Commonwealth newcomers as aliens and followed a two-
strand policy on immigration. This consisted, first, of Immigration Acts to restrict the
number of all immigrants entering the country and, second, of Race Relations Acts to
protect the rights of those immigrants already settled in Britain.
– There is still criticism of immigration laws and race-relations organizations. Some
people argue that one cannot legislate satisfactorily against discrimination and
others would like stricter controls on immigrant entry and refugees.

• Immigration and race remain problematic. They are complex matters, are exploited
for political purposes by both the right and the left, and can be overdramatized. Many
non-white immigrants and their British-born children have adapted to the larger
society whilst retaining their ethnic identities. Britain does have a relatively stable
diversity of cultures and the highest rate of intermarriage and mixed-race relationships
in Europe.

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Anglophone Worlds from a Historical and Cultural Perspective: United Kingdom and Ireland
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• The previous Labour government argued that the nation must compete in the
international marketplace and attract those immigrants and migrant workers that the
economy needs to compensate for a declining labour force, an ageing population and a
shortage of both skilled and unskilled workers. However all the political parties in the
2010 general election campaign admitted that immigration and asylum must be
controlled. The Conservatives argued that net immigration must be reduced to 50,000
or lower each year and the Liberal Democrats want a regional points system of control.
All agreed that the indigenous unemployed in Britain should undertake education and
training to fill job vacancies in order to reduce immigration levels and dependence on
welfare benefits.

• Historically, there has usually been a balance of migration, with emigration cancelling
out immigration in real terms, but there have also been periods of high emigration.
Groups left England and Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to settle
in Ireland and North America. Millions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, other colonies and the
USA.

• In recent years, there has also been controversy about the increased numbers of
asylum seekers entering Britain and suspicions that many are economic migrants
rather than genuinely in humanitarian need.
– New conditions for naturalization and redefinitions of British citizenship were
contained in the Nationality Act of 1981.
– More specific requirements for the attainment of British citizenship through
naturalization were made in 2002. This move has been seen as an attempt to
emphasize for immigrants the centrality of Britishness and British values.