Notting Hill: Migration, Context and Housing

Notting Hill in a city rebuilding after war

Between about 1948 and 1970, Notting Hill became an important centre of Caribbean settlement in Britain. It lies in West London, north of Kensington and west of Paddington. Its location offered access to central London’s jobs and transport, but many residents lived in overcrowded, deteriorating housing.

These conditions were connected to the effects of the Second World War. Bombing had destroyed or damaged homes across London, leaving a shortage of accommodation. Reconstruction required workers to repair buildings and restore services, while transport and healthcare also needed staff. Britain therefore needed more workers at the same time as it struggled to provide enough homes.

The post-war Labour government expanded public provision, including establishing the NHS in 1948. Such changes offered the prospect of greater security, but they did not immediately remove poverty or housing shortages. Migrants arrived in a country where opportunities and hardship existed together.

Why Caribbean people moved to Britain

Migration involved both pressures to leave the Caribbean and attractions drawing people towards Britain. Poverty, unemployment and limited opportunities were important push factors. Hurricanes could also damage homes and livelihoods. The importance of each factor varied between individuals and islands.

Britain’s demand for labour was a major pull factor. Jobs in transport, construction and hospitals offered opportunities, and British wages could be higher than those available in the Caribbean. Migration could therefore appear to offer a way to improve a family’s circumstances.

Connections created by the British Empire also mattered. Many Caribbean people were familiar with Britain through language and education and regarded it as the ‘mother country’. This encouraged expectations of belonging and a welcome. The British Nationality Act of 1948 established a citizenship framework linking Britain and its colonies, within which Commonwealth migration to Britain was possible. Commonwealth connections helped make Britain a familiar destination rather than simply another country offering work.

The need for workers did not guarantee equal treatment. A person could find employment in Britain but still face discrimination when looking for somewhere to live.

Why settle specifically in Notting Hill?

Notting Hill offered relatively cheap accommodation, although much of it was poor quality. Some local landlords were willing to rent rooms to Black migrants when landlords elsewhere refused them. This made the area accessible, but it also meant that settlement could reflect restricted choices rather than a preference for its housing conditions.

Nearby Paddington Station and other transport links made travel easier and helped residents reach work in central London. As Caribbean people settled, friends, relatives and existing community connections gave later arrivals further reasons to choose the area. Being near people with shared experiences could make an unfamiliar city feel more welcoming.

Portobello Road market also contributed to local life. After the war, it became a popular place for working-class residents, including migrant families, to shop, trade and meet. Alongside second-hand goods, clothing and antiques, it sold Caribbean foods such as yams and breadfruit. Its importance was therefore both practical and social: it offered opportunities to buy familiar food, earn money and build connections.

How overcrowding and HMOs shaped everyday life

Large houses were divided into rooms, bedsits or flats and rented to separate tenants. These houses of multiple occupation, or HMOs, commonly had shared kitchens and bathrooms. Subdivision increased the number of people who could be housed, but it could also produce cramped living conditions, particularly when buildings were poorly maintained.

For example, several households might occupy separate rooms in one house while relying on the same bathroom and kitchen. Each tenant had somewhere to live, but little private space and limited access to essential facilities. An HMO was not automatically a slum; the problems arose from overcrowding, unsafe conditions and neglect.

Wartime damage and the general housing shortage affected both migrants and established residents. Racial discrimination added another difficulty for Black migrants by reducing the accommodation available to them. With fewer alternatives, tenants were more vulnerable to landlords demanding high rents for inadequate rooms.

Peter Rachman and exploitation by landlords

Peter Rachman became a notorious example of a slum landlord in post-war Notting Hill. He owned more than 80 properties and divided houses into cramped rooms and bedsits, charging high rents for poor-quality accommodation. Some properties lacked adequate heating, electricity or sanitation.

Rachman used intimidation, threats and sometimes violence or illegal eviction against tenants. He forced out established white tenants and replaced them with newly arrived Caribbean migrants, exploiting their restricted housing choices and, in some cases, unfamiliarity with their rights.

His activities show how a housing shortage could become a source of private profit. Migrants needed accommodation, discriminatory refusals reduced their alternatives, and exploitative landlords could take advantage. Rachman’s practices should not, however, be treated as the behaviour of every landlord: some offered migrants accommodation and treated them kindly.

Bruce Kenrick and a practical housing response

In 1963, the Christian minister Bruce Kenrick helped establish the Notting Hill Housing Trust. It aimed to buy and renovate houses and provide safe, affordable accommodation for working-class residents, including migrants.

This directly addressed the problem of neglected private housing. Rather than simply condemning bad conditions, the Trust acquired properties and improved them, creating an alternative for people struggling to obtain decent homes. By 1970, it housed nearly 1,000 people. This was a significant contribution, although it did not end the wider housing shortage.

Kenrick also helped establish Shelter in 1966, extending campaigning against homelessness beyond Notting Hill. Local housing problems were thus connected to a broader national concern about access to decent accommodation.

The ‘Swinging Sixties’ did not reach everyone equally

London in the 1960s became associated with new fashions, popular music and cultural change: the ‘Swinging Sixties’. Living standards improved for many people as Britain moved beyond the immediate post-war shortages; food rationing ended in 1954.

Yet this lively image of London existed alongside low-paid work, poverty and poor housing. Many Caribbean migrants did not share equally in rising prosperity. Notting Hill illustrates that contrast: a growing community with opportunities and social connections, but also overcrowding and exploitation. Understanding both sides explains why migration continued while campaigns for better living conditions remained necessary.

Britain and migration

• Post-war reconstruction: damaged housing needed rebuilding; transport, construction and healthcare needed workers.
• Caribbean push factors: poverty, unemployment, limited opportunities and hurricane damage.
• British pull factors: jobs, higher wages, imperial and Commonwealth connections, and expectations of welcome in the ‘mother country’.