Woe is me. London is changing. Woe is me.
Some London history
1674-1715
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During the seventeenth century migration tended to be long distance and international. As a result, besides its youth, London's population in this period was also characterised by its diversity. All the regions and countries that made up the British Isles were well represented by self-conscious communities of migrants. Specific neighbourhoods were associated with Yorkshire, Scotland and Ireland. At the same time the
Huguenot refugees from France successfully carved out a distinct district for themselves in Spitalfields; while Sephardic
Jews and Ashkenazim from Poland and Germany settled around Whitechapel and Petticoat Lane. The
Irish came to dominate the area around St Giles in the Fields, which came to be known as "Little Dublin".
1760-1815
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At the same time, international, and indeed global, migration (both economic and forced) became more significant. Following the end of hostilities at the conclusions of the Seven Years War in 1763 and the American War in 1783,
a large number of black men and women from Africa, the Caribbean and North America settled in London. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century the black population of London is estimated to have been between 5,000 and 10,000. The outcome of the American War in particular also resulted in the establishment of a large American loyalist community, both white and black.
1815-1860
"In 1815 London was already the largest city in the world, but by 1860 it had grown three-fold to reach 3,188,485 souls. And many of the souls it contained were from elsewhere.
In 1851, over 38 per cent of Londoners were born somewhere else."
1860-1930
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During the same period, the flow of European immigrants rose from a steady stream to a regular river of humanity, while migration from the wider world also grew in importance."
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"The great revolutions and political struggles of late nineteenth-century Europe brought many from Russia, Poland, France, Italy and Germany - including revolutionaries and political activists such as Karl Marx. But most came to work, or to escape persecution."
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"Chinese and Indian immigrants became a more prominent and established part of the London whirl in these same years, while
Indian sailors, and a small but significant
African and Black Caribbean community continued to prosper. The Pan-African Conference was held in London in 1900; reflecting the extent to which the capital acted as the centre of imperial dissent as much as the centre of the imperium.
The 1901 census recorded 33,000 Londoners as having been born in British colonies or dependencies."
https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Population-history-of-london.jsp