![]() Thirty-five-year-old Jamaican Oswald M Denniston explained to the reporter, "Most of us are job-seekers, but others are here to finish their trades and education. Just two days after the Windrush docked, a group of 11 Labour MPs wrote to Prime Minister Clement Attlee calling for a halt to the "influx of coloured people".Īttlee's reply, available to view in the National Archives, said that "it would be a great mistake to take the emigration of this Jamaican party to the United Kingdom too seriously". The 'welcome' recorded by the Pathé footage does not tell the full story either. In December that year the Almanzora, carrying around 200 people from the West Indies, docked at Southampton." As historian David Olusoga points out, "In March 1947, the SS Ormonde transported 108 migrants from Jamaica to Liverpool. The report ends with a live performance from Calypso singer Aldwyn Roberts (known by the stage name 'Lord Kitchener'), singing the specially-written song ‘London Is the Place for Me’.ĭespite the apparent novelty of the new arrivals for attending journalists, the Windrush was not the first ship to bring migrants from the West Indies to Britain. When did the Windrush arrive at Tilbury Dock? 'Windrush' meanwhile was named after the River Windrush in the Cotswolds. 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. A year later the ship was renamed the Empire Windrush. MV Monte Rosa was captured as a prize of war by the British in 1945. These were hitched to a steam engine destined for Auschwitz." Why was the ship called the Windrush? "On arrival in Hamburg, the transportees were made to board wagons at gunpoint. The food on board was little more than thin soup and oatmeal. "The below decks areas had been cleared of tables and chairs and become a series of huge cages, where the prisoners would be divided by sex and age. "For this vile purpose the Windrush was transformed from troop carrier to prison ship," Arnott writes. ![]() Later in 1942, according to Arnott, the vessel was one of a number of ships used for the deportation of Norwegian Jews. However, with the outbreak of war the Monte Ros a was requisitioned by the Nazis and initially used to transport troops during the German invasion of Norway. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |