Anglo-American Conference of Historians 2009: Cities
Institute of Historical Research, 2 - 3 July 2009
The Immigrant and the British City Since 1850
Chair: Panikos Panayi (De Montfort University)
Despite the centrality of immigration in the evolution of modern Britain, the study of the experiences of migrants has still not penetrated into the mainstream. Much research also tends to focus upon individual migrant groups. The proposed panel will tackle urban experiences in a comparative manner by examining the Victorian Irish, the early twentieth century Jewish community in Manchester and the latter twentieth century Ugandan Asian community in Leicester and London. The panel as a whole will deal with the key themes in the history of migrants in the modern British city in the form of racism, integration and identity. It brings together two of the leading authorities on the study of migrants in Britain, together with two outstanding emerging scholars.
Abstracts
'No Irish need apply': the myth and reality of anti-Irish prejudice in nineteenth-century urban Britain
Donald MacRaild (University of Ulster)
During the Victorian period, the term ‘No Irish need apply’ (NINA) was appended to job advertisements in some of the nation’s leading newspapers. NINA became infamous for a while as symbol of English anti-Irish prejudice and spread to the United States where Irish-Americans continue to use it to frame diasporic narratives of struggle against racism and oppression. This paper presents findings drawn from an analysis of more than fifty on-line newspapers which reveals the extent and meaning of the NINA exclusion in urban Britain and Ireland. As well as focusing on labour-force exclusion, the paper also considers the political utility of NINA as generations of commentators in Ireland deployed the term as a reminder of English prejudice and as a brickbat against the Act of Union.
Sport and the Manchester Jewish community, 1900–39
Dave Dee (De Montfort University)
Between the turn of the 20th century and the Second World War, the largest Jewish community found outside of London was located in Manchester, in the north-west of England. Like many other Jewish communities in Great Britain, Manchester Jewry, whose roots could be traced back to the late 18th century, ballooned in size following the mass Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe and Russia which began in earnest in 1881; the community increasing from 1,500 persons in 1851 to nearly 30,000 by 1914.
Whilst paling in comparison to the vast historiography of the Jewish community in London, a modest amount of historical research has been conducted on Jews in Manchester which is mainly attributable to renowned Jewish historian Bill Williams. Despite, however, publications such as The Making of Manchester Jewry being impressive in both depth and analysis, relatively little is known of the community’s history in the early twentieth century and even less about its relationship with indigenous sports and physical recreations.
This paper aims to begin addressing these historiographical gaps and will focus on documenting the rise of interest in sport and leisure amongst Manchester Jewry which took place between 1900 and 1939. As well as analysing how and why Manchester’s Jews chose to participate in a broad range of sports and physical recreation, I will also discuss the social, cultural and political implications that their involvement and their success, particularly in boxing and table tennis, had on the wider community. The interwar years saw an explosion of Jewish interest in sport, and an accompanying high level of anti-Semitism, across the whole country, and this paper will also put the contribution of Manchester’s Jewish population into some kind of national context.
Ugandan Asians in the city: identity and belonging
Joanna Herbert (Queen Mary University of London)
On 4 August 1972 President of Uganda Idi Amin announced that the South Asian population had 90 days to leave the country. South Asians were dispersed to a number of receiving countries in the West, including Canada and Sweden, but the majority, some 28,000, came to Britain. Despite the efforts of the Uganda Resettlement Board, which sought to steer Ugandan Asians away from existing areas of minority ethnic settlement, Leicester and London emerged as important sites of settlement for Ugandan Asians. These cities were seen as desirable locations by Ugandan Asians who were drawn by existing networks to these areas and were attracted to the established social, cultural and religious facilities which served the existing South Asian population. Drawing on in-depth life story interviews with Ugandan Asians, this paper examines the significance of locality in forging belongings and compares the experience of living in Leicester, a provincial Midland city, to London, a global city, and how this shaped their identities. It is argued that whilst Ugandan Asians in London identified with wider Gujarati or religious communities, those who moved to Leicester cultivated a stronger Ugandan Asian identity based on close knit networks. The paper explores the specific sites of belonging within the cities, the impact of participating in these different communities for both men and women and how they negotiated these different urban contexts. The paper responds to the call by scholars to attend to the everyday within studies of migration and by highlighting the role of the city in shaping identities and belongings, challenges much of the literature on diaspora which often emphasises a common attachment to a homeland.
