| Notable Polish Britons: Joseph Conrad, Henryk Zygalski, Stanisław Maczek Władysław Anders, Sir Josef Rotblat |
| Total population |
|---|
| 60,711 Polish-born (2001 Census) 515,000 Polish-born (2010 ONS estimate) |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Throughout the United Kingdom |
| Languages |
| Religion |
Polish migration to the United Kingdom describes the temporary or permanent migration of Poles to the United Kingdom (UK). Most Polish migrants to the UK emigrated after two major events, the Polish Resettlement Act 1947 and the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. Today, a large number of Polish-born people live in the UK, and there is a wider population of British Poles including the descendents of previous immigrants.
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According to the Medieval chroniclers Thietmar of Merseburg and Adam of Bremen, King Canute the Great - who ruled both Denmark and England - was the son of a Polish princess, a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland and sister of Boleslaw I of Poland. An inscription in "Liber vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester" mentions King Canute as having a sister named "Santslaue" ("Santslaue soror CNVTI regis nostri"), which without doubt is a Slavic name, and J. Steenstrup suggests this was a rendering of Świętosława. References in medieval chronicles to the involvement of Polish troops in invasions of England are likely related to Canute's Polish ancestry, constituting the earliest evidence of Poles arriving in the country.
In the 16th century, when most grain imports to the British Isles were derived from Poland, Polish travellers came as merchants and diplomats, usually on the Eastland Company trade route from Gdansk to London. Poles are mentioned in Shakespeare's Hamlet, which Israel Gollancz says is an influence of The Counsellor by Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki. As early as 1608 there were enough Poles in England for the Virginia Company to hire a group of them to sail to America to help salvage the Jamestown Colony, where they formed an early trade union.[1] In the 17th century, Irish Catholics serving in the Swedish Army defected to Poland.[2]
After the Battle of Vienna a central London pub was called the 'King of Poland' and soon after the road it was situated in, was named 'Poland Street' - which exists to this day. In the 18th century some Polish Protestants settled around Poland Street as religious refugees from the counter reformation in Poland.
In the 19th century, due to the collapse of the November Uprising of 1831 against the Russian Empire, many Polish insurgents came to the UK in search of political sanctuary.[3] After the First World War Poles settled in large numbers in London – many from the London Polish Prisoner-of-War camps in Alexandra Palace and Feltham.
The Poles made an important contribution to the Allied war effort, which directly led to the formation of the Polish British community as it exists today. The majority of Poles came to the United Kingdom as political émigrés after the German and Soviet occupation of Poland. In 1940, with the fall of France, the exiled Polish President, Prime Minister and government transferred to London, along with a first wave of at least 20,000 soldiers and airmen.
Poles formed the fourth-largest armed force after the Soviets, the Americans and the combined troops of British Empire. Poles were the largest group of non-British personnel in the RAF during the Battle of Britain, and the 303 Polish Squadron was the highest-scoring RAF unit in Battle of Britain. Special Operations Executive had a large section of covert, elite Polish troops and close cooperation with the Polish resistance. The Polish Army under British high command were instrumental at the Battle of Monte Cassino, the Battle of the Falaise Gap, the Battle of Arnhem, the Siege of Tobruk and the liberation of many European cities including Bologna and Breda.
Perhaps most importantly, the Poles cracked an early version of the Enigma code, which "laid the foundations for British success in cracking German codes".[4] Former Bletchley Park cryptologist Gordon Welchman said: 'Ultra would never have got off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details both of the German military... Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use.'[5] After the war, Churchill told King George VI: 'It was thanks to Ultra that we won the war."[6]
By July 1945 228,000 troops of the Polish Armed Forces in the West were serving under the high command of the British Army.[3] Many of these men and women were originally from the Kresy region of eastern Poland including cities such as Lwow and Wilno. They had been deported from Kresy to the Russian Gulags when Hitler and Stalin occupied Poland in 1939 in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. When two years later Churchill and Stalin formed an alliance against Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the Anders Army and marched to Persia to create the II Corps (Poland) under British high command.
These Polish troops were vital to the Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy, and hoped to return to Kresy in an independent and democratic Poland at the end of the War. But at Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed that Stalin should keep the Soviet gains Hitler agreed to in the Nazi-Soviet Pact, including Kresy, and carry out Polish population transfers (1944–1946). Consequently, Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed that tens of thousands of veteran Polish troops under British command should lose their Kresy homes to the Soviet Union, with the implication that relatives including wives and children would be at the mercy of the NKVD.[7] In reaction, thirty officers and men from the II Corps (Poland) committed suicide.[8]
Churchill explained his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a vote of confidence. Many MPs openly criticised Churchill over Yalta and voiced strong loyalty to the UK's Polish allies.[8] Some reporters felt Churchill wasn't confident Poland would be the independent and democratic country Polish troops could return to, because the prime minister also said: 'His Majesty's Government will never forget the debt they owe to the Polish troops... I earnestly hope it will be possible for them to have citizenship and freedom of the British empire, if they so desire.'[9]
During the debate, 25 MPs risked their careers to draft an amendment protesting against the UK's tacit acceptance of Poland's domination by the Soviet Union. These members included: Arthur Greenwood; Sir Archibald Southby, 1st Baronet; Sir Alec Douglas-Home; Commander Sir Archibald Southby, 1st Baronet; James Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 3rd Earl of Ancaster and Victor Raikes.[8] After the failure of the amendment, Henry Strauss, 1st Baron Conesford, the Member of Parliament for Norwich, resigned his seat in protest at the British treatment of Poland.[8]
When the Second World War ended, a Communist government was installed in Poland. Most Poles felt betrayed by their wartime allies, and refused to return to Poland, because of the Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–1946), Soviet conduct around the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the Trial of the Sixteen and other executions of pro-democracy Poles, particularly the former members of the Home Army. The result was the Polish Resettlement Act 1947, the UK's first mass immigration law.
Large numbers, after occupying resettlement camps of the Polish Resettlement Corps, later settled in London, many recruited as European Volunteer Workers.[10] Others settled in the British Empire, forming large Polish Canadian and Polish Australian communities.
In the 1951 Census of the UK, the Polish-born population of the UK numbered some 162,339, up from 44,642 in 1931.[11][12]
The relaxation of travel restrictions to and from Poland saw a steady increase in Polish migration to the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Brixton, Earls Court and Lewisham were a few of the London areas where they settled. As these communities grew, it was felt by the Polish Catholic hierarchy and the English and Scottish hierarchies that Polish priests should settle and minister specifically to the spiritual needs of the Polish people. The first such parish was Brockley-Lewisham in 1951 and today there are 10 Polish parishes in London, in places such as Balham and Ealing. Thriving parishes also exist in many other UK towns and cities.
The longer established communities that ensued after the church established itself were mainly set up by former members of the Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC) in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Around the hub of a Polish church would be Polish clubs, Cultural Centres as well as a variety of adult and youth organisations such as the Ex-Combatants (SPK), the Polish Youth Group (KSMP) and the Polish Scouting Movement (ZHP pgk). The original aims of these organisations was to ensure a continuation of Polish language, culture and heritage for the children of the ex PRC members. Many of these groups are still active and steps are being taken to attract newer Polish migrants.
The Polish Government in London was not dissolved until 1991, when a freely elected president took office in Warsaw. The Polish people fought hard to combat communism, and for their right to liberty. Previously a base to fight against the communist regime in Poland, London came to be seen as an important centre to foster business and political relations.
Many of the Polish British community formed after the Second World War had friends and relatives in Poland. Partly because of this bond, there was a steady flow of immigration from Poland to the UK, which then accelerated after the fall of communism in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, Poles used the freer travel restrictions to move to the UK and work in the grey economy.
At the expansion of the EU on 1 May 2004, the UK granted free movement to workers from the new member states.[14]
There are restrictions on benefits that Polish immigrants can claim, which are covered by the Worker Registration Scheme.[15] Most of the other European Union member states exercised their right for temporary immigration control (which must end by 2011[16]) over entrants from these accession states,[17] although some are now removing these restrictions.[18]
The Home Office publishes quarterly statistics on the number of applications to the Worker Registration Scheme. Figures published in August 2007 indicate that 656,395 people were accepted on to the scheme between 1 May 2004 and 30 June 2007, of whom 430,395 were Polish nationals. However, this figure is only indicative as the scheme is an opt-in system without incentive: it costs Poles time and money and isn't enforced. Poles are able to ignore the scheme and work in the UK provided they have a Polish passport or Polish identity card and a National Insurance Number Card, which has led to estimates of Polish nationals in the UK being much higher.[19]
The Polish magazine Polityka has launched a 'Stay With Us' scheme offering young academics a £5,000 bonus to encourage them to stay at home.
Rapid economic growth at home, falling unemployment and the rising strength of the złoty have, by the autumn of 2007, reduced the economic incentive for Poles to migrate to the UK.[20] Labour shortages in Poland's cities and in sectors such as construction, IT and financial services have also played a part in stemming the flow of Poles to the UK.[21] According to the August 2007 Accession Monitoring Report, fewer Poles migrated in the first half of 2007 than in the same period in 2006. Launched on 20 October 2007, a campaign by the British Polish Chamber of Commerce, 'Wracaj do Polski' ('Come Back to Poland') encourages Poles living and working in the UK to return home.
There was a baby boom during Martial Law in Poland in the early 1980s. Consequently there has been over-supply of new workers on the Polish job market in the 2000s. Unemployment rose and emigration has been a solution for many young Poles. Now that Poland's demographic bulge is ageing, the rate of new entrants to the job market, and therefore emigration, is slowing. Some commentators say the Polish baby-boomers are returning to Poland as they reach child-rearing age themselves.[20] wo
The 2001 UK Census recorded 60,711 Polish-born people resident in the UK.[22] 60,680 of these were resident in Great Britain (the UK minus Northern Ireland), compared to 73,951 in 1991.[23] With the migration that has followed Poland's accession to the EU, the Polish-born population in the whole of the UK is estimated to have risen to 515,000 in the year to March 2010.[13] Unofficial estimates have put the number of Poles living in the UK higher, at up to one million.[24][25][26]
The main hub of the London Polish community is Hammersmith in west London, as well as Ealing, Balham, Enfield and Haringey. The activities revolve around the Polish Social and Cultural Centre (POSK) in King Street. Polish newspapers and food shops are increasingly apparent following Poland's entry into the European Union in May 2004. Many towns and cities in the UK have long established and relatively large Polish communities, most notably London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bradford, Huddersfield, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham and Wakefield. Other communities exist in locations such as Leicester, Slough, Reading and Melton Mowbray.
Poles have also settled in Hereford, Sheffield, Bolton, Bury, Northampton, Peterborough and Chorley in Lancashire. There is a long established Polish community in Bristol and there are also concentrations in Derby, South Yorkshire, South Wales, North Wales mainly in Wrexham, Rugby, Banbury, Luton, Evesham and Swindon. Scotland has seen a significant influx of Polish immigrants with estimates of Poles currently living in Scotland ranging from 40,000 according to General Register Office for Scotland up to 50,000 as per Polish Council,[27] with around 5,000 in the Highlands region. This has led to the creation of a bilingual English-Polish newspaper.[28]
Carlisle in Cumbria, which is twinned with the Polish city of Słupsk, has a Polish population of over 1,600.[29] Blackpool has about 5,000 immigrants living in and around the resort on the Fylde coast. The local newspaper is one of a handful of British newspapers to have its own online edition in Polish called Witryna Polska .[30]
Following the recent migrations, many towns and cities in the UK now have a growing number of Polish inhabitants. Polish workers are employed in agriculture and light industry in the countrysides of low-population density regions such as East Anglia and East Midlands.
Official figures on the number of Polish people in Northern Ireland are difficult to obtain. The total number of Polish nationals who applied for a National Insurance Number is 12,020 as of 2005, but the actual number of residents is likely to be much higher.[31] A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) recruitment drive in November 2006 attracted applications from 968 Poles, with language exams being held both in Northern Ireland and Warsaw, but as of 2008 none have entered the PSNI's ranks.[32][33]
Polish people living in the UK reported 42 racially motivated violent attacks against them in 2007, compared with 28 in 2004.[34]
On July 26, 2008, The Times published a comment piece by Jewish restaurant reviewer Giles Coren containing anti-Polish sentiment including alleged Polish anti-Semitism. Coren used the racial slur 'Polack' to describe Polish immigrants in the UK, arguing that "if England is not the land of milk and honey it appeared to them three or four years ago, then, frankly, they can clear off out of it".[35] The article has been subject to major criticism.
The Nationalist British National Party (BNP) have used anti-Polish sentiment,[36] and campaigned for a ban on all Polish migrant workers in Britain.[37] In one highly publicised incident, the party used a poster that showed a nostalgic picture of a Second World War Spitfire fighter plane under the slogan "Battle for Britain", during the party's 2009 European Elections campaign, in which they argued against Polish immigration in Britain. However, apparently unknowingly, the photograph they used was accidentally that of a Spitfire belonging to the 303 Squadron of the Polish Air Force. John Hemming, MP for Yardley, Birmingham, ridiculed the party for accidentally using an image of "Polish heroism" in their campaign: "They have a policy to send Polish people back to Poland – yet they are fronting their latest campaign using this plane."[38]
The following individuals are notable Poles who have lived in the United Kingdom, or British people of Polish ancestry.
Memoirs and fiction
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