History and Reasons for Migration Patterns

Understanding migration in London’s East End

London’s East End, including Spitalfields and Whitechapel, has received migrants from different places at different times. Understanding this history means asking connected questions: where did people come from, why did they leave, why did they settle here, and did they stay or move on?

Migration includes movement within a country as well as movement across borders. Someone arriving in Britain from France is an immigrant to Britain and an emigrant from France: the same journey viewed from opposite ends. Moving from the East End to another British town is internal migration, not emigration from Britain.

People rarely moved for just one reason. A danger at home might push them to leave, while work or relatives elsewhere pulled them towards a particular destination.

Huguenot refugees and the silk industry

Huguenots were French Protestants who faced religious persecution, including attempts to force them to convert to Catholicism. Around 50,000 Huguenot refugees made Britain their home between 1685 and 1725. This is a figure for Britain as a whole, not just the East End.

Spitalfields became an important centre of Huguenot settlement and silk weaving. Migrants involved in the textile trades came mainly from northern France, Bas Poitou and Nîmes. Their routes varied: some reached London through Amsterdam, some settled first in Canterbury, and others joined relatives already living in London. Migration was therefore not always a single direct journey from a birthplace to a final home.

Religious persecution explains why these refugees needed to leave France. Work and family connections help explain why some chose Spitalfields. Many had already been merchants, master weavers or journeymen in France. They brought skills, capital and business experience, and were accepted by the Weavers’ Guild. These resources helped them establish themselves in London’s silk industry rather than begin an entirely unfamiliar occupation.

Settlement also continued into the next generation. James Leman, born in 1688 into a family of Huguenot descent, became an apprentice to his father in Spitalfields in 1702 and later a successful silk designer and master weaver. His experience illustrates how a refugee family’s skills could become part of the local economy over time.

Jewish migration from Eastern Europe

The East End offered refuge to Polish Jews escaping persecution under Russian rule in the 1860s and 1870s. Arrivals increased particularly during the 1880s and 1890s. Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, accusations blaming Jews helped fuel pogroms in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Russian Empire. Anti-Jewish laws and economic hardship added to the pressures to leave.

Between 1880 and 1914, about 150,000 Eastern European and Russian Jewish refugees arrived in the UK. Up to 70% settled in London’s East End, enlarging an existing Jewish neighbourhood around Spitalfields and Whitechapel. These figures distinguish the national movement from settlement in the particular area.

Why choose the East End? It was close to London’s docks and Liverpool Street Station, where migrants could arrive after landing at Harwich. Cheap housing, employment and existing community networks made settlement possible. Some newcomers arrived with little more than the name of a friend or relative who could help them.

Many found work in the clothing industry; others became market traders or shopkeepers. Employment was available, but conditions could be harsh. In 1889, Charles Booth’s researchers counted 571 workshops making men’s coats in less than one square mile around Whitechapel. Small, crowded workshops offered a foothold in the economy rather than a guarantee of prosperity.

Community assistance also mattered. The Poor Jews’ Temporary Shelter opened in Leman Street in April 1886, providing short-term accommodation and advice. The Jewish Board of Guardians offered loans for sewing machines. Such support helped turn arrival at a port into a workable life in the area.

Leaving the East End: onward journeys and return migration

The East End was not only a destination. For some migrants it was a stopping place on a longer journey. This is called transmigration: travelling through one country towards another. Some Jewish refugees continued to America rather than settling permanently in Britain; others travelled onwards to South Africa.

The Temporary Shelter helped these outward movements as well as local settlement. Migrants could lose their money to dockside thieves or dishonest agents and become stranded in London. Protecting their money, providing accommodation and arranging passage enabled them to continue towards their intended destination. In the 1890s, the Shelter became an agent for shipping companies, including the Union Castle Line serving South Africa. Many Eastern European Jewish migrants who eventually settled in South Africa passed through its administration.

Return migration could also follow political change. In 1905, revolution in the Russian Empire led to the tsar’s October Manifesto and an amnesty for certain political refugees. Many political émigrés in the East End then made plans to return, encouraged by the prospect of renewed political activity at home. This did not mean the whole community left: Aleksey Teplov, who ran Whitechapel’s Free Russian Library, stayed behind.

Other departures were movements within Britain. Families who could afford to do so relocated to more affluent Jewish areas of London. This reduced the local population without constituting emigration from Britain. Meanwhile, the 1905 Aliens Act restricted further immigration. Reduced arrivals, onward journeys, possible returns and relocation within London could therefore all change the size and character of the East End community, but they were different processes.

South Asian migration: from sailors to settled communities

A later migration pattern connected the East End with South Asia and the British Empire. London’s importance as a port offered opportunities to sailors. As the economy recovered in the early 1930s, increasing numbers of sailors from different parts of the Empire left their ships and remained in Britain.

During the 1930s, a more permanently settled Muslim community grew in the East End. Further arrivals during the Second World War, particularly from South Asia, helped establish a community that preceded the larger movements from the early 1960s onwards. The opening of the East London Mosque on Commercial Road in August 1941 marks an early stage of this settlement.

After Indian independence and Partition in 1947, the East End’s Muslim population expanded further. Many arrivals came from East Pakistan, the territory that became Bangladesh in 1971. Suffering associated with Partition encouraged migration, while existing connections helped draw migrants towards the East End.

Why migration increased in the 1950s–1970s

During the 1950s and 1960s, political deterioration in Pakistan acted as a push factor, while continuing economic opportunities in Britain acted as a pull factor. The threat of tougher British immigration controls also encouraged migration. Anticipated restrictions could lead people to move sooner, before entry became harder, rather than immediately reduce arrivals.

Migrants were subsequently joined by families and friends. This changed the character of settlement: migration was not simply a succession of individuals seeking work, but increasingly involved the formation of lasting communities. Local organisations helped meet social, religious and welfare needs. The Pakistan Caterers’ Association, established in 1960, is one example.

The civil war in East Pakistan in 1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh, brought further political uncertainty and economic turmoil. Migration from the region to Britain rose sharply, alongside the arrival of dependants. In the East End, Bangladeshis became concentrated in garment manufacturing, catering and small shopkeeping.

Comparing patterns across time

The geographical origins changed substantially: Huguenot migration connected Spitalfields with France; later Jewish migration brought people from Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire; South Asian migration followed imperial and post-imperial connections.

The pressures also differed. Huguenots fled religious persecution. Jewish refugees faced pogroms, discriminatory laws and economic hardship. South Asian migration involved maritime employment, Partition, political instability, economic opportunities and family reunion. Political changes could encourage departure as well as arrival, as the return plans of Russian political émigrés in 1905 show.

There were important continuities. In each period, hardship or danger at home combined with opportunities at the destination. Relatives and established communities helped attract further arrivals. Textile employment linked the experiences of Huguenot silk workers, Jewish clothing workers and later Bangladeshis in the garment industry, although their skills and working conditions differed.

These were overlapping patterns, not a simple replacement of one population by another. In 1914, 46 silk-weaving workshops still operated in Bethnal Green and Spitalfields. By the 1980s, increasingly permanent Muslim family settlement focused attention on maintaining faith, culture and traditions across generations. To explain change accurately, distinguish new arrivals, long-term settlement, onward emigration and movement to other parts of Britain.