Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:22:48.812Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The outcast Irish in the British Victorian city: problems and perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Roger Swift
Roger Swift*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Chester College of Higher Education
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The early decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a substantial increase in the pace and scale of Irish emigration to Britain, a process which culminated in the massive Irish pauper influx of 1845-51 in the wake of the Irish famine. During this period the Irish-born population of England, Scotland and Wales rose from 415,000 in 1841 to 727,000 in 1851, reaching 805,000 in 1861, when it comprised 3.5 per cent of the population. Thereafter, the number of Irish-born declined to 653,000 in 1891, reviving only in the twentieth century. These figures do not, however, include the children of Irish immigrants born in Britain; thus the actual size of ethnic Irish communities was undoubtedly much higher than contemporary census returns suggest. Indeed, a survey of the Irish in Britain conducted in 1872 by the Nation, a Dublin weekly newspaper, argued that the number of Irish-born indicated in official statistics should be doubled in order to arrive at a more realistic enumeration of the ethnic Irish community in Britain.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 99 , May 1987 , pp. 264 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For further details, see esp. Fitzpatrick, David, Irish emigration, 1801-1921 (Dublin, 1984)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Irish emigration in the later nineteenth century’ in I.H.S., xxii, no. 86 (Sept. 1980), pp 126-43.

2 I am indebted to Dr Alan O’Day for allowing me to use his unpublished paper, based on the Nation survey, ‘A survey of the Irish in England, 1872’, which was prepared for the European Science Foundation project ‘Government and non-dominant ethnic minorities in Europe, 1850-1940’ (Apr. 1986).

3 Fitzpatrick, , Irish emigration, p. 13.Google Scholar

4 For a comprehensive bibliography, see Hartigan, Maureen and Hickman, Mary (eds), The history of the Irish in Britain, a bibliography (London, 1986).Google Scholar

5 For further details, see the editors’ introduction in Swift, Roger and Gilley, Sheridan (eds), The Irish in the Victorian city (London, 1985), on which this paper is based.Google Scholar

6 Neal, Frank, ‘Liverpool, the Irish steamship companies and the famine Irish’ in Immigrants and Minorities, v (1986), pp 28-61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Ó Tuathaigh, M.A.G., ‘The Irish in nineteenth-century Britain: problems of integration’ in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 31 (1981), pp 149-74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Carlyle, Thomas, Chartism (1839; Everyman ed., London, 1972).Google Scholar

9 See, e.g., Denvir, John, The Irish in Britain (London, 1892), pp 153-4, 412-14Google Scholar; Thompson, Flora, Lark rise to Candleford (London, 1939), pp 257-8Google Scholar; MacGill, Patrick, Children of the dead end (London, 1914), pp 68-75.Google Scholar

10 See esp. Thompson, E.P and Yeo, Eileen (eds), The unknown Mayhew: selections from the Morning Chronicle, 1849-50 (London, 1971), pp 217-73.Google Scholar

11 Lees, Lynn Hollen, Exiles of Erin: Irish migrants in Victorian London (Manchester, 1979).Google Scholar

12 Gallagher, Tom, ‘A tale of two cities: communal strife in Glasgow and Liverpool before 1914’ in Swift & Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian city, pp 106-29.Google Scholar

13 Aspinwall, Bernard and McCaffrey, John, ‘A comparative view of the Irish in Edinburgh in the nineteenth century’ in ibid., pp 130-57Google Scholar

14 Collins, Brenda, ‘Irish emigration to Dundee and Paisley during the first half of the nineteenth century’ in Goldstrom, J.M. and Clarkson, L.A. (eds), Irish population, economy and society (Oxford, 1981), pp 195-212.Google Scholar

15 Thompson, E.P, The making of the English working class (London, 1963), p. 475.Google Scholar

16 Report on the state of the Irish poor in Great Britain, pp xxx–xxxi, H.C., 1836 (34), xxxiv, 456-7

17 Redford, Arthur, Labour migration in England, 1800-50 (London, 1926; revised ed., Manchester, 1964), p. 159.Google Scholar

18 Williamson, Jeffrey, The impact of the Irish on British labour markets during the industrial revolution’ in Journal of Economic History, 46 (1986), pp 693-720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Large, David, ‘The Irish in Bristol in 1851: a census enumeration’ in Swift & Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian city, pp 37-58.Google Scholar

20 Finnegan, Frances, Poverty and prejudice: Irish immigrants in York, 1840-75 (Cork, 1982).Google Scholar

21 O’Day, ‘A survey of the Irish in England’, pp 3-4.

22 Denvir, , The Irish in Britain, pp 435-7Google Scholar

23 Richardson, Clem, ‘The Irish in Victorian Bradford’ in Bradford Antiquary, 9 (1976), pp 294-316.Google Scholar

24 Dillon, Tom, ‘The Irish in Leeds, 1851-61’ in Thoresby Miscellany, 16 (1979), pp 1-29.Google Scholar

25 Werly, John M., ‘The Irish in Manchester, 1832-49’ in I.H.S., 18, no. 71 (Mar. 1973), pp 345-58.Google Scholar

26 Millward, Pauline, ‘The Stockport riots of 1852: a study of anti-catholic and anti-Irish sentiment’ in Swift & Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian city, pp 207-24.Google Scholar

27 See, e.g., Swift, Roger, ‘Another Stafford Street row: law, order and the Irish presence in mid-Victorian Wolverhampton’ in Immigrants and Minorities, 3 (1984), pp 5-29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Finnegan, , Poverty & prejudice, pp 16-34 Google Scholar, Lees, , Exiles of Erin, pp 55-87 Google Scholar

29 Fitzpatrick, , Irish emigration, p. 32.Google Scholar

30 Jones, David, Crime, protest, community and police in nineteenth-century Britain (London, 1982), pp 117-43.Google Scholar

31 Weinberger, Barbara, ‘The police and the public in mid nineteenth-century Warwickshire’ in Victor Bailey (ed.), Policing and punishment in nineteenth-century Britain (London, 1981), pp 69-71.Google Scholar

32 Swift, Roger, ‘Crime and ethnicity: the Irish in early Victorian Wolverhampton’ in West Midlands Studies, 13 (1980), pp 1-5.Google Scholar

33 Treble, James, ‘The attitude of the Roman Catholic church towards trade unionism in the north of England, 1833-42’ in Northern History, v (1970), pp 227-47Google Scholar

34 Thompson, Dorothy, ‘Ireland and the Irish in English radicalism before 1850’ in Epstein, James and Thompson, Dorothy (eds), The Chartist experience: studies in working-class radicalism (London, 1982), pp 120-51.Google Scholar

35 Belchem, John, ‘English working-class radicalism and the Irish, 1815-50’ in Swift & Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian city, pp 85-97 Google Scholar

36 Lowe, W.J., ‘Lancashire Fenianism, 1864-71’ in Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 121 (1977), pp 156-85.Google Scholar

37 Quinlivan, Patrick and Rose, Paul, The Fenians in England, 1865-1872 (London, 1982).Google Scholar

38 Short, K.R.M., The Dynamite War: Irish-American bombers in Victorian Britain (Dublin, 1979).Google Scholar

39 Belchem, , ‘English working-class radicalism’, pp 85-97 Google Scholar

40 Gallagher, , ‘ A tale of two cities’, pp 106-29.Google Scholar

41 Waller, P.J., Democracy and sectarianism: a political and social history of Liverpool, 1863-1939 (Liverpool, 1981).Google Scholar

42 Kirk, Neville, ‘Ethnicity, class and popular tory ism, 1850-1890’ in Lunn, Kenneth (ed.), Hosts, immigrants and minorities: historical responses to newcomers in British society, 1870-1914 (Folkstone, 1980), pp 64-105.Google Scholar

43 O’Day, Alan, ‘Irish influences on parliamentary elections in London, 1885-1914’ in Swift & Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian city, pp 98-105.Google Scholar

44 Lees, , Exiles of Erin, p. 242.Google Scholar

45 Steele, E.D., ‘The Irish presence in the north of England, 1850-1914’ in Northern History, 12 (1976), pp 220-41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Curtis, L.P, Apes and angels: the Irishman in Victorian caricature (Newton Abbot, 1971).Google Scholar

47 Curtis, Liz, Nothing but the same old story: the roots of anti-Irish racism (London, 1984).Google Scholar

48 Quoted in Curtis, , Apes & angels, p. 100.Google Scholar

49 Gilley, Sheridan, ‘English attitudes to the Irish in England, 1780-1900’ in Holmes, Colin (ed.), Immigrants and minorities in British society (London, 1978), pp 81-110.Google Scholar

50 Tuathaigh, Ó, ‘The Irish in nineteenth–century Britain’, pp 159-63.Google Scholar

51 Millward, , ‘The Stockport riots’, pp 207-24.Google Scholar

52 Foster, John, Class struggle and the industrial revolution (London, 1974), pp 243-6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Gilley, Sheridan, ‘The Garibaldi riots of 1862’ in Historical Journal, 16 (1973), pp 697-732.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Arnstein, W.J., ‘The Murphy riots: a Victorian dilemma’ in Victorian Studies, 19 (1975), pp 51-71.Google Scholar

55 Millward, , ‘The Stockport riots’, pp 207–24.Google Scholar

56 Swift, Roger, ‘Anti-catholicism and Irish disturbances: public order in mid-Victorian Wolverhampton’ in Midland History, 9 (1984), pp 87-108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Miller, D.W, ‘Irish Catholicism and the Great Famine’ in Journal of Social History, 10 (1975), pp 81-98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 Connolly, Gerard, ‘Irish and catholic, myth or reality?’ another sort of Irish and he renewal of the clerical profession among catholics in England, 1791-1918’ in Swift & Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian city, pp 225-54.Google Scholar

59 Gilley, Sheridan, ‘The catholic faith of the Irish slums: London, 1840-70’ in Dyos, H.J. and Wolff, Michael (eds), The Victorian city: images and reality (2 vols, London, 1973), ii, 837-53Google Scholar; see also idem, ’Vulgar piety and the Brompton Oratory, 1850-60’ in Swift & Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian city, pp 255-66.

60 Samuel, Raphael, ‘The Roman Catholic church and the Irish poor’ in Swift & Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian city, pp 267-300.Google Scholar

61 Lees, , Exiles of Erin, p. 249.Google Scholar

62 Ibid., p. 250.

63 Burchell, R.A., ‘The historiography of the American Irish’ in Immigrants and Minorities, 1 (1982), pp 281-305.Google Scholar