Although English emigration became one of Europe’s most significant population movements, there is virtual silence on the English Diaspora. This conference seeks to locate this hidden diaspora and the English in the Anglo-Phone World.

Compared to what has been written about the migration of Scots and Irish from the British Isles, relatively little energy has been expended on the numerically more significant English flows. Whilst the Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Jewish and Black Diasporas are well known and much studied, there is no English Diaspora. Why has little been said about the English other than to map their main emigration flows? Did the English simply disappear into the host population? Or were they so fundamental, and foundational, to the Anglo-phone, Protestant cultures of the evolving British World that they could not be distinguished in the way Catholic Irish or continental Europeans were?

This conference will explore these and other fundamental issues about the nature and character of English identity during the creation of the cultures of the British World. Papers may examine:

• Patterns of English Emigration
• The formation of English communities
• Protestantism and Englishness
• The relationship between Englishness and colonial values
• The relationship between English and non-English cultures in North America
• Colonial Identity and Imperial Identity
• Canadian and American Loyalisms
• English Sports in North America
• English Culture and Pastimes
• Englishness, Ethnicity and Civic Identity