| Notable Italian Britons Frankie Dettori · Lawrence Dallaglio · Claire Forlani · John Florio · Dante Gabriel Rossetti · Tony Iommi · Joe Calzaghe · Sergio Pizzorno · |
| Total population |
|---|
| Italian-born residents 107,244 (2001 Census) 106,000 (2009 ONS estimate) est. 350,000 people of Italian origin |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Peterborough · Manchester · Glasgow · Glamorgan · Chelsea · South Kensington · Bedford · Westminster · Kensington |
| Languages |
|
British English · Italian (and related forms) |
| Religion |
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Predominantly |
| Related ethnic groups |
Italians in the United Kingdom also known as British Italians[1] or Britalians[2] are British citizens or residents of Italian ethnic or national origin. The phrase may refer to someone born in the United Kingdom of Italian descent, someone who has themselves emigrated from Italy to the United Kingdom or someone born elsewhere (e.g. the United States) who are of Italian descent and have migrated to the UK. More specific terms used to describe Italians in the United Kingdom include: Italian English, Italian Scots and Italian Welsh.
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The Romans were the first Italians to settle in the British Isles who came as far back as AD 43, when Emperor Claudius invaded.
According to historian Michael Wayatt, there was "a small but influential community" of Italians "that took shape in England in the fifteenth century initially consisting of ecclesiastics, humanists, merchants, bankers, and artists."[3] In the aftermath of the English Reformation, amongst other religious refugees from the European continent, many Italian Protestants found Tudor England to be a hospitable haven, and brought with them cultural Italian ties. The fifteenth century also saw the birth of a pivotal Italo-Englishman in the form of John Florio, a famed language teacher, lexicographer, and translator. The Titus family is another significant group that settled in England in the time of the Renaissance.
The arts flourished under the Hanoverian dynasty and this attracted many more Italian artists and musicians to Britain.
The sinking of the steamship SS Arandora Star on 2 July 1940 resulted in the loss of over 700 lives—including 446 British-Italians being deported as undesirable.[4] Italians comprised almost half of the ship's 1564 passengers; the rest were British soldiers, German POWs and Jewish refugees.[4] Sailing for Canada from Liverpool, the unescorted Arandora Star was torpedoed by the German submarine U-47 and sank within 30 minutes.[4] One historian describes it as the "most tragic event in the history of the [British] Italian community... no other Italian community in the world has suffered such a blow."[5] On the 19 July the Home Secretary, wrote a letter to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, in which he made it clear that he realised mistakes had been made in selecting Italians for the Arandora Star.[6] Lord Snell was charged with conducting a government inquiry into the tragedy. He recognised that the method of selecting dangerous Italians was not satisfactory and the result was that among those earmarked for deportation were a number of non-fascists and people whose sympathies lay with Britain.[7]
The region of the country containing the most Italian Britons is London, where over 50,000 people of Italian birth live [1], Manchester, where 25,000 Italians live [2], Bedford, where there are over 14,000 people of Italian origin living,[8] has the highest concentration of Italian immigrants in the UK and Peterborough. This is mainly as a result of labour recruitment in the 1950s by the London Brick Company in the southern Italian regions of Puglia and Campania. By 1960 approximately 7,500 Italian men were employed by London Brick in Bedford and a further 3,000 in Peterborough.[9] In 1962 the Scalabrini Fathers, who first arrived in Peterborough in 1956, purchased an old school and converted it into a church named after the patron saint of workers San Giuseppe. By 1991 over 3,000 christenings of second-generation Italians had been carried out there.[10]
The 2001 census recorded a total of 107,244 Italian-born people resident in the United Kingdom.[11] Office for National Statistics estimates put the equivalent figure for 2009 at 106,000.[12] Italian is the first language of 200,000 people in the UK.[13]
Italians and British born people of Italian descent reside across the entire UK. Also unlike many ethnic groups in the country, there are actually substantial numbers of Italians outside of England (i.e. the numbers of Asians, Blacks etc. in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are much less than those in England, population and percentage wise). Locations with significant Italian populations within the UK are listed below.
Italian expatiate sport is becoming increasingly popular in the UK especially in London. Expatiates in addition to Britalians are represented in football and in the Olimpiadi Gioventù Italiana (Italian youth Olympics). By far the most popular sporting club is London Italian Rugby Club. The club is growing from strength to strength each year.
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