20 June 2025

By Silvia Gerlsbeck

“London is the place for me/ London, this lovely city/ You can go to France or America/ India, Asia or Australia/ But you must come back to London city”

These iconic lines from Trinidadian calypso singer Aldwyn Roberts, aka Lord Kitchener, were composed aboard the SS Empire Windrush – the ship that brought him, along with approximately 500 other Caribbean immigrants from various islands to Tilbury, Essex in 1948. His song captures the hopes and aspirations of what would later be called the Windrush Generation. Today, June 22 is marked as Windrush Day in Britain, commemorating the arrival of the first large group of immigrants from the Caribbean islands and then-British colonies to England and symbolising – albeit reductively – the beginning of Black British history in the postwar era. Recruited actively – in part through the BBC – by the British government to help fill post-war labour shortages, the Windrush Generation took on vital roles in transport, the NHS, and public services, and laid the foundation for modern day multicultural Britain. Their vibrant culture, from music and food to language and fashion, continues to shape British life to this day. Yet in the years after Windrush, the hopes Lord Kitchener and many of his fellow passengers held were marred: the Windrush immigrants and their descendants faced mounting disillusionment in an ever-growing, politically fostered hostile environment in which entry and settlement were increasingly restricted. This culminated in the so-called Windrush scandal of 2018: due to a UK government failure and negligent record-keeping, hundreds of long-term Caribbean residents—many invited to Britain after WWII—were wrongly detained, denied essential services like healthcare or housing, or were, in extreme cases, deported to a country they had never lived in. 

As of the 2021 Census, approximately 630,000 people in the UK identify as British African-Caribbean, representing around 1% of the population. Windrush Day, established in 2018 as an official day of recognition, serves to acknowledge the contributions of Caribbean migrants to British society and to raise awareness of the historical and administrative issues highlighted by the Windrush scandal.

Sources and further reading

How Windrush altered the sociology of Britain: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/23/windrush-75th-anniversary-arrivals-caribbean-reshape-britain

https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/online-exhibitions/windrush-day

Lord Kitchener’s song “London is the Place for Me”: https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/london-is-the-place-for-me.html

Who were the Windrush generation and what is Windrush day: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43782241

Windrush day at the Reading Museum: https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/online-exhibitions/windrush-day