Windrush 75

Our 'Browns Super 6' highlights six of our favourite books on a chosen theme or topic, chosen by an experienced member of the Browns Selection Team. We hope you enjoy our selection!

Thursday 22 June is Windrush Day, marking 75 years since the arrival of the Empire Windrush in the UK. 1,027 passengers and two stowaways disembarked the ship at the Essex port of Tilbury on 22 June 1948, almost a month after it had set sail from Jamaica. The passenger list included mechanics, tailors, carpenters, housing domestics and engineers.

Many journalists met the Windrush on her arrival in Tilbury, and a wealth of photos and interviews exist. Thirty-five-year-old Jamaican Oswald M Denniston explained to a reporter, "Most of us are job-seekers, but others are here to finish their trades and education. The very poor can't leave Jamaica. They must have £28 for their passage and another £5 on them when they sail," he said, adding, "It wasn't poverty that brought me here."

The Empire Windrush was built in Germany and launched in Hamburg on 13 December 1930. However, the ship was not originally called the Empire Windrush. Instead, it was called the MV Monte Rosa. Monte Rosa was originally built as a cruise ship, taking German travellers to Europe and South America on Nazi-approved holidays. With the outbreak of the war the Monte Rosa was transformed to a troop carrier and then to a prison ship. MV Monte Rosa was captured as a prize of war by the British in 1945, and a year later renamed the Empire Windrush. 

The 'Empire' part of the name follows the pattern of other merchant ships controlled by the British government during and after the Second World War, and 'Windrush' named for the River Windrush in the Cotswolds.  The Windrush continued to be used as a troop carrier into the 1950s, and on 28 March 1954 whilst sailing off the coast of Algeria an explosion in the engine room resulted in a catastrophic fire. All but 4 of the 1,280 crew members were saved, and the Empire Windrush sank in the early hours of 30th March.

The Windrush was certainly not the first ship to bring migrants from the West Indies, both the SS Ormonde and the Almanzora docked in Liverpool and Southampton the year before carrying passengers from the West Indies and Jamaica.

Between 1947 and 1971 when immigration laws changed, nearly half a million people moved from the Caribbean to Britain, many in response to advertisements for workers from the UK government. Although not all the migrants arrived on the Windrush, the ship became a representative symbol of a mass-migration movement, and those who came to the UK around this time were later referred to as "the Windrush Generation". Those who arrived became manual workers, cleaners, drivers, and nurses in the newly established NHS - and many broke new ground in representing black Britons in society.

The original passenger list of the Windrush is held by the National Archives and can be found here. This came after the individual passenger cards were destroyed by the Home Office in 2010, and then recreated in 2019 by Goldsmiths, University of London. The free database contains names, nationality, occupations, and planned destinations for all passengers on board.

The 2010 action by the Home Office in destroying the landing cards, set in motion a chain of events -  even though the 1971 Immigration Act gave Commonwealth citizens living in the UK indefinite leave to remain it emerged in 2018 that the Home Office had kept no records of those granted permission to stay, and had not issued the paperwork they needed to confirm their status. Those affected were unable to prove they were in the country legally and were prevented from working and accessing housing and healthcare and many were threatened with deportation. In April 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May apologised for their treatment, an inquiry was announced, and The Windrush Compensation Scheme was established in April 2019. In April 2023, Human Rights Watch said the scheme was "failing" victims, and repeated calls for it to be removed from the Home Office's control.

So as we commemorate 75 years of the arrival of the Empire Windrush we cannot forget that despite the invitation, Caribbean people were often met with intolerance, were often denied accommodation and access to some shops, pubs, clubs and even churches, and then had to live through the trauma and injustice of the Windrush immigration scandal which is still not resolved for many. Despite this the anniversary is also cause to celebrate how the passengers who disembarked 75 years ago would transform British Culture with their phenomenal contribution to dance, art, food, writing and music.

We have picked 6 books for further reading for all ages if you want to learn more…

Claudia, Content Selection Team