The Windrush Generation

In 1948, Empire Windrush travelled from the United Kingdom to the Caribbean, to repatriate around 500 West Indians who had served in the Royal Air Force during World War 2. She was also carrying 257 civilians, including women and children. The ship departed from Southampton on May 7th and arrived in Trinidad on May 20th. She then stopped at Kingston, Jamaica, Tampico, Mexico and Bermuda, before returning to the United Kingdom.

Advert in the Jamaican newspaper, The Daily Gleaner, 15th April, 1948

Before the ship left the United Kingdom opportunistic advertisements had been placed in a Jamaican newspaper, The Daily Gleaner, offering cheap passage on the ship's return voyage; advertisements were also placed in newspapers in British Honduras, British Guiana, Trinidad and Tobago and other places. However, the cheapest fares were only available to men, who were accommodated in the large, dormitory areas usually allocated to troops. Women were required to travel in the ship's two and four-berth cabins, that cost considerably more.

Many former servicemen took this opportunity to return to Britain in hope of finding better employment. Some wished to rejoin the RAF. Others decided to make the journey just to see what the "mother country" was like. One passenger later recalled that demand for tickets far exceeded supply, and there was a long queue to buy one.

The British Nationality Bill to give the status of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC status) to all British subjects connected with the United Kingdom or a British colony, was going through Parliament. Some Caribbean migrants decided to embark in anticipation that the bill would become an Act of Parliament. Until 1962, the UK had no immigration control for CUKCs. They could settle in the UK indefinitely, without restriction.

PASSENGERS ABOARD: A figure often given for the number of West Indian migrants aboard Empire Windrush is 492, based on news reports in the media at the time, which variously announced that "more than 400", "430" or "500" Jamaican men had arrived in Britain. However, the ship's manifest, kept in the United Kingdom National Archives, shows that 802 passengers gave their last place of residence as a country in the Caribbean. A small number of the Caribbean people aboard were Indo-Caribbeans. One of whom, Sikaram Gopthal, was the father of the record-label owner Lee Gopthal.

Among West Indian passengers was Jamaican-born Sam Beaver King, who was travelling to the UK to rejoin the RAF. He later helped to found the Notting Hill Carnival, and became the first black Mayor of Southwark. The Jamaican artist and master potter Cecil Baugh was also aboard. There were a number of musicians, who were later to become well known. These included the Calypso musicians Lord Kitchener, Lord Beginner and Lord Woodbine; the jazz trumpeter Dizzy Reece and the Trinidadian singer Mona Baptiste, one of the few women on the ship, who travelled first class.

Also aboard were 66 Poles who had embarked in Tampico. They were women and children whom the Soviets had deported to Siberia after the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, but who had escaped and travelled via India and the Pacific to Mexico. About 1,400 had been living at a refugee camp at Santa Rosa near León, Guanajuato since 1943. They were granted permission to settle in the UK under the Polish Resettlement Act 1947. One of them later recalled that they were given cabins below the waterline, allowed on deck only in escorted groups, and kept segregated from the other passengers.

Of the other passengers, 119 were from the UK, and 40 from elsewhere in the World. Non-Caribbean people aboard included a serving RAF officer, Sierra Leonean John Henry Clavell Smythe, acting as a welfare-officer. He later became Attorney General of Sierra Leone. Others passengers were Nancy Cunard, English writer and heiress to the Cunard shipping fortune; the travel writer Freya Stark (who shared a cabin with Cunard); Lady Ivy Woolley, the wife of Sir Charles Woolley, the governor of British Guiana.; Gertrude Whitelaw, the wealthy widow of the former Member of Parliament William Whitelaw. and Peter Jonas, who was only two years old and travelling with his mother and older-sister. He would be later well-known as an arts administrator and opera company director.

One of the stowaways was a woman called Evelyn Wauchope, a 27-year-old dressmaker. She was discovered seven days out of Kingston. Some of the musicians on-board organized a benefit concert that raised enough money for her fare, and £4 spending money.

ARRIVAL: Empire Windrush's arrival became a news event. When she was in the English Channel, the Evening Standard sent an aircraft to photograph her from the air, and published the story on its front page. She docked at Tilbury, downriver from London, on 21 June 1948 and the 1,027 passengers began disembarking the next day. This was covered by newspaper reporters and by Pathé News newsreel cameras. The name Windrush, as a result, has come to be used as shorthand for West Indian migration, and, by extension, for the beginning of modern British multiracial society.

The purpose of Empire Windrush's voyage to the Carribean had been to repatriate service personnel. The UK government neither expected nor welcomed her return with civilian, West Indian migrants. Three days before the ship arrived, Arthur Creech Jones, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote a Cabinet memorandum noting that the Jamaican Government could not legally stop people from leaving, and the UK government could not legally stop them from landing. However, he stated that the Government was opposed to this migration, and both the Colonial Office and the Jamaican government would take all possible steps to discourage it.

The day after arrival, several MPs, including James Dixon Murray, warned the Prime Minister that such an "argosy of Jamaicans", might "cause discord and unhappiness among all concerned". George Isaacs, the Minister of Labour, stated in Parliament that there would be no encouragement for others to follow their example. Despite this, Parliament did not pass the first legislation controlling immigration from the Commonwealth until 1962.

Passengers who had not already arranged accommodation were temporarily housed in the Clapham South deep shelter in southwest London, less than a mile away from the Coldharbour Lane Employment Exchange in Brixton, where some of the arrivals sought work. The stowaways were given brief prison sentences, but were allowed to remain in the UK after their release.

Many of Empire Windrush's passengers intended to stay for only a few years. A number did return to the Caribbean, but a majority settled permanently in the UK. Those born in the West Indies who settled in the UK in this migration movement over the following years are now typically referred to as the "Windrush Generation".

PREVIOUS CARIBBEAN MIGRANT ARRIVALS: While the 1948 voyage of the Empire Windrush is well-known, she was not the first ship to bring West Indians to the UK after World War II. On 31 March 1947, Orient Line's Ormonde reached Liverpool from Jamaica with 241 passengers, including 11 stowaways. They included Ralph Lowe, who became the father of the author and poet Hannah Lowe. Liverpool Magistrates Court tried the stowaways and sentenced them to one day in prison, which effectively meant their immediate release.

On 21 December 1947, Royal Mail Line's Almanzora reached Southampton with 200 passengers aboard. As with Empire Windrush, many were former service personnel who had served in the RAF in World War II. 30 adult stowaways and one boy were arrested when the ship docked; they were jailed for 28 days.