Germans in 19th-Century Britain

Up until the nineteenth century, the movement of Germans to Britain had taken place on a small scale and this had been the case ever since the period after the invasion of Angles and Saxons from the fifth century. During the Middle Ages, for example, merchants of the Hanseatic League settled in various east coast ports and centred in London. Although Elizabeth I expelled them for economic reasons in the late sixteenth century, by the beginning of her successor James I's reign, the German community in London numbered as many as 4,000, consisting of both religious refugees and economic immigrants.

Further immigration took place during the eighteenth century, but only during the nineteenth century did the German population of Britain rise to significant numbers. The first year giving exact figures is 1861, when the census first took account of the country of origin of the population. The figure for that year totalled 28,644 and had almost doubled to 53,324 by 1911, excluding Germans who had become naturalised British citizens and children of immigrants.