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4.3 Disparate origins
Only four pieces of information were collected about each person in
the 1841 Census. That one of these was birthplace is indicative of how
essential this item was and still is.
(Craig, 1987, p. 33)
Where the people who make up the social landscape of Britain came from in
the past is, perhaps, as well known as it will ever be. Many people know little of
their actual origins or even things as simple as the fact that most ancient Britons
at one time spoke a language similar to Welsh. Researchers have sometimes been
biased towards seeing some immigrant groups as more immigrant than others 5
(Figure 4.8).
Visualizing migration streams is one of the major themes in this topic. Static
pictures of migration are best provided by looking at the distribution of people
across the country born in a particular place. Shading every street in Britain
by the proportion of its population whose birthplace was in Ireland (North and
South) shows the scattering of people who, in the course of their lifetime, flowed
from that one island to live in this. We see immediately how strongly the Irish
immigrants are concentrated in particular localities (Figure 4.9).
Migration is about mixing. The picture fails if it does not convey the colourful
mixtures of people that result from their movement. Colour, resulting from the
mixing of light, gives the clearest images of the kaleidoscope of people's differing
origins. Not more than three primary colours can be used. That is the most that
human eyes can distinguish.
Each country naturally contains mostly people born within its boundaries.
Taking colours from national flowers: England is red, Scotland blue and Wales
yellow. Mixing takes place between them: thus the Scottish border is purple,
the Welsh border (and Cornwall) orange. There are disproportionate numbers
of Welsh and Scottish people in London, where there is a dearth of English
born, colouring the Capital green (a mixture of over-average amounts of blue
and yellow).
Closer inspection shows just how intricate the pattern of mixing is. The white
areas on the picture of the distribution of British-born are made up of streets
where there are shortfalls of all the indigenous nationalities. Here overseas-born
immigrant populations are most densely settled in the social landscape. 6
5 'The emphasis of immigrant community research by British geographers and other social scien-
tists during the past twenty years has been overwhelmingly on the Afro-Caribbean and Asian groups
at the expense of those of longer standing and greater numbers, but perhaps of less visibility' (King
and Shuttleworth, 1989, p. 64).
6 It must be remembered that we are mapping place of birth, not colour of skin: 'For example,
of the 322 670 persons born in India living in Britain in 1971, between one-fifth and one-third (66
139 - 104 362) may have been Whites born in India
...
' (Peach, 1982, p. 24).
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