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The most significant group of refugees in this period, however, was the Jews from Eastern Europe. They came because they were subject to violent attacks - pogroms - in what is now Russia, Poland and Ukraine. They were desperately fleeing terror - some travelled entirely on foot - and Britain’s relatively open door meant that about 140,000 arrived from the 1880s onwards, settling mainly in urban areas such as East London, Leeds and Manchester. Many of these Jewish refugees were - like many Irish immigrants - hoping to travel on to the USA, but could not afford to travel further than Britain. Many other joined relatives already in Britain.

While the earlier upper class Jews had mixed into the wider population, the new arrivals stuck closer to their traditions of language, food and culture. They were often politically active; for example in the 1889 tailors’ strike. There were tensions with the earlier Jewish settlers, too. Some Jewish leaders feared that the new arrivals would cause a rise in anti-Semitism. Others, together with non-Jews, raised money to help the refugees and ran charitable missions and soup kitchens.

Jewish tailors and seamstresses in the sweatshops of London, Leeds and Manchester created cheap, good quality clothing. This meant that many working-class British people could afford new clothes for the first time in their lives. In addition, many of the well-known clothes retailers that are around today, such as Marks and Spencer, Burton and Moss Bros, were started by 19th century Jewish immigrants.

Anti-Semitism was on the rise by the end of the 19th century in the climate of pseudo-scientific racism that claimed some ‘races’ were inferior to others. In novels, short stories and the popular press, Jews were portrayed as sinister, to be feared and were dehumanised. Places such as London’s Whitechapel were written about by journalists as if they were a foreign country. Pressure grew for laws restricting the immigration of ‘foreign aliens’.