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Unquantifiable? A New Estimate of the Impact of International Migration to Edinburgh in 1911

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2018

Marc Di Tommasi
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Abstract

In the decades before World War I, the United Kingdom was the pivot of a significant migratory phenomenon. While great swaths of the population were going abroad, multiple movements from the European continent (mainly from Germany, Italy, and Poland) were arriving on the British shores. To reappraise the impact of migration into the United Kingdom, this article focuses on Edinburgh in 1911, with the aim of moving beyond the initial movement of people and toward an analysis of the longer-term demographic trends. The main sources are the 1911 Census Enumerators’ Books, which are also the basis of the official census report and contain a plethora of information that were previously unavailable. Using a methodology that has been developed specifically for this study, the migrants’ households and their familiar links have been completely reconstructed. Moreover, the various communities have been examined in relation with all the other migrant groups, as well as with the local Scottish population. The resulting quantitative analysis paints a surprising picture of their impact, with significant differences between the various migrant groups, and highlights how the role played by the migrants in the development of the United Kingdom has been underestimated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , Fall 2018 , pp. 517 - 542
Copyright
© Social Science History Association, 2018 

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Footnotes

The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful advice and comments from Richard Rodger, Wendy Ugolini, Michael Anderson, Iida Saarinen, three anonymous referees and attendees at the conferences organized by the Economic History Society, the Population History Society and the Urban History Group.

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