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African Customs in an English Setting: Legal and Policy Aspects of Recognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Extract

Although there are no reliable, detailed official figures as to the present ethnic composition of the population of Great Britain, a recent survey by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys has estimated that the number of Africans settled here is just over 100,000. Many more, of course, arrive in Britain each year as students or visitors. Indeed, in 1986 the volume of visitors from Nigeria and Ghana was considered by the British Government to be placing such burdens on immigration officials at the ports of entry that it was felt necessary to alter the immigration rules; people coming from those two countries now have to be in possession of visas before they arrive in the United Kingdom.

The presence of a significant number of Africans in England today is nothing new. There were at least 10,000 here in the late eighteenth century and possibly as many as 30,000, at a time when the total population of the country was only about a sixth of what it is today. West African slaves were brought to England from the 1570s onward. Most of them were used as household servants, often by the aristocracy, and some were employed as court entertainers. Indeed, at the beginning of the sixteenth century Henry VII had a black trumpeter (of uncertain origin) in his retinue. Much earlier, Africans served as soldiers in the Roman legions which occupied Britain during the first four centuries A.D.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1987

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