Population Migration

Indian Sub Continent

Around the time that migrants from the West Indies were arriving in Wolverhampton, migrants were also arriving from the other Commonwealth Countries of India and Pakistan.

They came for similar reasons. Britain had a labour shortage and it sought to alleviate this by employing workers from other countries that had surplus labour.

In 1954 there were ten Indian families living in Wolverhampton. Two years later the Indian Workers Association had a membership of one hundred and fifty.

The decade between 1961 and 1971 was the main period of Asian immigration. Settlement from India and Pakistan rose from 1,756 in 1961 to 12,120 in 1971.

This is reflected in the number of children of Asian families entering Bingley Infant and Junior School for instance. A check of the admission registers (D-EDS-18/6/3,5 and 6) shows the following number of Asian children being admitted to the school between 1955 and 1980:

Click on the image to enlarge

Evidence from the Grove School's Governer's minutes (D-EDS-49) show how the school attempted to accommodate its new pupils: there was a Language Centre, and checks were made on all pupils entering the school to identify any language issues. Teachers also attended courses on how to teach immigrants. In 1979 the Grove School designed a turban as part of its school uniform.

Asian migrants tended to concentrate in the areas of Dudley Road and Blakenhall. Services such as temples, shops, newspapers and cinemas soon developed to serve the Asian communities.

Awaz newspaper, 30th June 1960 (L92)

Asian migrants worked in factories, steelworks and in clothing manufacture.

Bilston blast furnace workers, c.1980 (L6/BIL/E/24)

Coliseum Cinema, Dudley Road, Wolverhampton, 1975 (M7/COL/E/2)

Housing and employment became areas of concern. Migrants tended to live in areas that contained sub-standard and therefore cheaper housing. In many cases when these types of houses came on the market it was only migrants who were interested in buying them. Therefore areas of poor housing developed, lived in solely by migrants.

Unemployment amongst ethnic minorities was examined by the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration in March 1969.

Mr Grayson the Director of Education for Wolverhampton was called to give evidence to the Committee. He stated that over 30% of pupils in Wolverhampton's schools at this time were from a minority background.

Statistics had been recorded by local schools in the mid to late 1960s. Some of these details survive in school records available at Archives & Local Studies.

Whitmore Secondary School Immigrant Numbers 1966 - 1969

Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration,
Minutes of Evidence, page 394

This situation was not helped by the employment situation at the time in Wolverhampton. Young Asian and West Indian men and women found it very hard to obtain work. Employers were reluctant to employ those who they considered immigrants for a number of reasons.

Transport Department figures for 1955 show that there were fifty immigrant workers out of a total workforce of nine hundred. In 1960 this figure was three hundred, and by 1965 the total had risen to six hundred.

In 1965 the Transport Department became embroiled in a dispute about Sikhs wearing beards and turbans at work.

The dispute began when a Sikh, Tarsem Singh Sandhu, was sent home after defying the Wolverhampton Transport Department ban on the wearing of beards and turbans.

Tarsem Singh Sandhu, Express and Star, 9th August 1965

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Express and Star, 9th August 1967

The result of a spot check conducted by the local newspaper revealed that the public of Wolverhampton had no objection to Sikh bus crews. One person said:"It is right that they should wear them."
Another said:
"If they can wear them in their own country, they can wear them here"
The views of another reflected this view:
"I would not object as long as we could get there and back".*

The Turban Row rumbled on, and local and national politicians and trade unionists became involved.

Mr Sohan Singh Jolly, leader of the United Kingdom Sikh organisation, the Akali DahlIn, threatened to burn himself to death unless the dispute was settled.

In April 1968 four Sikh leaders saw the British High Commissioner in New Delhi with a letter addressed to the British Prime Minister expressing solidarity with Mr Jolly.

In his book Transport and Turbans, David Beetham argues that the dispute had more to do with Indian politics in the Punjab than race relations. He stated that the dispute was about the differences between the Akali Party and the Indian Workers Association.

The dispute was also used as a major part of the campaign about Tarsem Singh Sandu's brother in local elections in the Punjab.

The issue was finally settled after two years when turbans and beards were permitted at work.

Express and Star editorial, 10th April 1969

It was said at the time that the dispute set, back rather than advanced, race relationships in Wolverhampton.

Enoch Powell

Enoch Powell was well known for his views on immigration and race.

Following an unsuccessful attempt to become a Member of Parliament in 1947 he was elected MP for Wolverhampton South West in 1950, a seat he was to hold for nearly twenty-five years.

Despite serving as Minister of Housing, Financial Secretary to the Treasury and finally Minister of Health, it is for one speech made in 1968 that Enoch Powell tends to be remembered.

At Easter 1968 Enoch Powell made a speech in Birmingham known as "the rivers of blood speech". In it he warned of black immigrants taking over the inner cities. However it was the reference to the 'River Tiber foaming with blood' that made this one of the most notorious speeches in recent British political history. The speech rocked Britain and Powell's views were both supported by some and attacked by others. Some called him a racist while others claimed he was just expressing the views of ordinary people.

Even following his death in 1998 Enoch Powell was still considered by some to be a racist; and his speech, which by then was thirty years old, continued to generate passions on both sides of the argument.

The 1981 census figures for Wolverhampton show that the total number of migrants living in Wolverhampton was 20,910 out of a population of 254,561: 1 in 12.7 of the population. This figure is in fact far lower than the 1871 ratio for Irish migrants in Wolverhampton, which was 1 in 5.6.

A closer look at the 1981 census figures shows that more migrants were leaving Wolverhampton than arriving: 6,267 against 4,555, a net loss of 1,712 migrants.

Figures from the 1991 census show that there were 27,722 Indian (11.4%) and 9,973 Black Caribbean (4.1%) living in Wolverhampton out of a total population of 242,190.