Watch – The Art of Belonging: Migration Meets Culture in a Changing UK

Last month, we held a discussion event at the historic Guildhall in the City of London, exploring how migration has shaped the UK’s art and culture – and what its role in our future cultural landscape could and should be. Read more

Annual Lecture 2024 – Sunder Katwala asks: ‘Does the history of migration shape its future?’

For our 2024 Annual Lecture, Sunder Katwala, Director of the thinktank British Future, asked us to consider: if we engage and educate people about the history of immigration, how much can we hope or expect to change how we talk and think about its future? Listen and read the full transcript of Sunder’s lecture. Read more

Signposting to refugee and asylum seeker support organisations in London

© Migration Museum (Artwork: Wall © STIK/Thierry Noir)

A downloadable guide featuring a selection of organisations supporting refugees and asylum seekers in London. Read more

Oxford Education Podcast – Migration: Enrich Your KS3 History Curriculum

Aaron Wilkes and Shalina Patel discuss how effective teaching of migration can enrich your Key Stage 3 curriculum, with insights from Liberty Melly and Tia Shah from the learning team at the Migration Museum. What do students gain from studying migration at KS3? How has historical scholarship on migration changed in recent years? What is the impact of new research on how we should teach the topic? Read more

Lewisham: About Face by EVEWRIGHT – audio and video

“This installation is my own unique perspective on growing up in Lewisham as the child of parents from the Windrush generation, reflecting on the places and the forgotten heroes of Lewisham’s past and present that have shaped my life. In the audio clips below, I share my memories of family and growing up in Lewisham, my… Read more

Moving Stories: Lewisham – a creative competition for young people aged 9-18

Over the past year, young people from across Lewisham have been designing exhibits responding to what migration means to them as part of Moving Stories: Lewisham, a creative competition we ran during Borough of Culture, supported by Landsec. This video tells the story of the competition, featuring interviews with the six shortlisted teams and footage of the finals event. Read more

Departures podcast episode 9 – Brits Abroad Today

Britain continues to be a major source of emigrants in the 21st century – not something we often hear about. So why do people leave the UK now and which countries do they choose to settle in? And how is emigration today affected by Britain’s colonial past? Mukti Jain Campion talks to sociologist Professor Michaela Benson of Lancaster University who studies modern British emigration and hears from a range of British people currently living abroad. Read more

Welcome back to the Migration Museum

Contemporary artist STIK has made a video for us to celebrate our reopening, featuring amazing drone footage of WALL and our current exhibitions. Read more

Departures podcast episode 8 – Deported Children

Britain is unique in its long history of exporting its own children. Well into the 20th century there were official schemes sending young children out to settle in former colonies such as Canada and Australia with the promise of a better life. While some children were fortunate enough to do well in their new country, for thousands of others the forced migration was a profoundly traumatic experience of family separation, neglect and abuse. Mukti Jain Campion hears from two former child migrants who were sent to Australia in the early 1950s without their parents’ consent. She also speaks to Margaret Humphreys, founder and director of the Child Migrants Trust which was established to support former British child migrants reunite with their families and asks what lessons can be learned from their experience?

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Departures podcast episode 7 – The Left Behind Wives of Cornwall

When we speak of emigration we tend to think of the people who leave to go abroad. But what about the families and communities left at home? In 19th century Cornwall this was a pressing question. As the once-thriving local mining industry went into decline, thousands of men left each year to find better paid jobs abroad. They were often gone for years, leaving wives and families to cope alone and rely on remittances that didn’t always come. Mukti Jain Campion speaks to Dr Lesley Trotter author of The Married Widows of Cornwall to find out how these so-called “left behind” wives survived and why their stories are so important to understand the full story of migration. Amanda Drake also shares a poignant letter sent by her 19th century ancestor. Read more

Jewish Museum Object Talk – Dunera

Our Head of Learning and Partnerships Emily Miller introduces the Dunera display from our Departures exhibition, as part of the Jewish Museum’s Passover Object Series of talks. Read more

Departures podcast episode 6 – A Welsh Utopia in Patagonia

In May 1865, 153 men, women and children set sail from Liverpool to travel to the other side of the world.  Their dream was to build a new homeland, somewhere they could speak Welsh, govern themselves and pursue their religion and culture without interference. A romantic vision that took them 8,000 miles to the remote Chubut valley in Argentina. Did their dream of a Welsh utopia come true? And what impact did their arrival have on indigenous people who already called this region home? Mukti Jain Campion speaks to Professor Lucy Taylor of Aberystwyth University who has studied the archives of the Welsh in Patagonia, and Gareth Jenkins who has traced a family from his own village in Montgomeryshire that was amongst the early migrants. Read more

Departures podcast episode 5 – The Leaving of Liverpool

From the early 19th century to the beginning of the First World War, over 10 million British people migrated. Over half of these emigrants left from the port of Liverpool. Mukti Jain Campion talks to Ian Murphy, Director of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, to discover how the port of Liverpool became the gateway to millions of new lives abroad, and examines the importance of printed propaganda in fuelling 19th century British emigration with Dr Fariha Shaikh, author and Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Birmingham. Read more

Departures podcast episode 4 – Emigration and Enslavement

Episode 4: Emigration and Enslavement The 17th century colonisation of North America and the Caribbean by emigrants from the British Isles was, almost from its beginning, dependent on the brutal forced transatlantic migration of millions of enslaved African people. Their labour made possible the industrial-scale production of lucrative crops such as tobacco, sugar and cotton… Read more

Departures podcast episode 3 – The Company Men in India

From the beginning of the 17th century when the first ships of the English East India Company set sail from London, tens of thousands of men from Britain ventured out to live an expat life in a country that was completely different to anything they had previously known. Most never returned. Mukti Jain Campion speaks to historians William Dalrymple, Professor Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Dr Kate Teltscher and to Gurminder Bhambra, Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies at the University of Sussex, to find out more about the Company men who went to India and how their actions brought profound change for both Britain and India. Read more

Departures podcast episode 2 – Maidens’ Voyage

In the early 17th century shiploads of young women were despatched to America by the Virginia Company of London. It was hoped they would marry the English planters in Jamestown and help grow the new colony. But who were these young women prepared to travel thousands of miles across the ocean in search of a husband? And how did they fare? Mukti Jain Campion talks to Jennifer Potter, author of The Jamestown Brides: The Bartered Wives of the New World. Read more

Departures podcast episode 1 – The Swarming of the English

Mass emigration from England first took off in the 17th century with the colonisation of America and the Caribbean. The number of people leaving the shores of England was huge and unprecedented. Mukti Jain Campion speaks to historian James Evans, author of Emigrants:Why the English Sailed to the New World and to American historian Dr Linford Fisher to find out how those early English settlers fared and how Native Americans responded to the incursion of their lands. Read more

Departures podcast: 400 years of emigration from Britain

Departures is a new podcast from the Migration Museum exploring 400 years of emigration from Britain. Read more

Migration and Museums – a review for the Migration Network 2020/21

The Migration Museum commissioned a review to provide an overview of migration-related work being undertaken by museums and heritage sites nationally, to explore some of the motivations for the museum sector to address migration and the challenges faced in doing so, and to provide an initial basis and context for participants in the Migration Network 2020/21 to explore further. Read more

Migrants Mean Business – Karen Blackett in conversation with David Abraham

© Elzbieta Piakacz

Episode 3 of Migrants Mean Business features Karen Blackett, UK Country Manager for WPP and Chairwoman of MediaCom, in conversation with David Abraham Read more

Migrants Mean Business with George Alagiah – Sir Lloyd Dorfman

Episode 2 of Migrants Mean Business features a conversation between George Alagiah and entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Lloyd Dorfman CBE. Lloyd founded Travelex at the age of 24 from one small shop in London and grew it to become the world’s largest foreign exchange specialist. Lloyd and George’s wide-ranging conversation explores Lloyd’s business and philanthropic career, his family roots and Jewish identity, the essence of entrepreneurialism and whether one ever stops being a ‘migrant’. Read more

Migrants Mean Business with George Alagiah – Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou

To kick off our Migrants Mean Business series, we’ve got a cracking conversation with one of the most charismatic and recognisable business leaders of the past few decades – Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou. His conversation with Daniel Franklin, executive and diplomatic editor of The Economist, ranges from shipping to dog walking, suing Netflix to going head to head with Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary. Read more

David Olusoga delivers the Migration Museum Annual Lecture 2018: ‘The Perils of Our Insular Illusion’

Historian, producer, presenter and Migration Museum trustee David Olusoga delivered our 2018 Annual Lecture at SOAS on 22 November 2018, arguing that, to make sense of contemporary Britain, we need to recover the global aspects of our history and culture. Read more

No Turning Back: Seven Migration Moments that Changed Britain

A video showcasing our exhibition No Turning Back: Seven Migration Moments that Changed Britain. Read more

Migration Museum 2017 Annual Lecture with Gary Younge

Journalist and author Gary Younge looks at how immigration is understood in the current age and what the consequences are in terms of migration, social anxiety and democracy. Read more