In August 1972, Ugandan dictator General Idi Amin served 90 days’ notice on around 70,000 Asians to leave Uganda. Each family was permitted to take only £55 and one suitcase per individual. 28,200 of these who held British passports were admitted to the UK. The then government set up the Uganda Resettlement Board to assist the expellees to find permanent homes, jobs and school places. Sixteen temporary resettlement camps around the country were set up and staffed in just six weeks. Charities, faith groups, campaigning organisations and private individuals in their thousands stepped forward to provide much needed support in those critical early months. This extraordinary feat of cooperation has strong contemporary relevance. Fifty years on, British Ugandan Asians have excelled in many fields from business and finance to politics, science, and the arts. British Ugandan Asians at 50 is a programme of the India Overseas Trust. We have received funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to record, on film, the oral histories of people who were involved in the camps as residents, volunteers or paid staff. We have focused on three of the Board’s resettlement camps: Tonfanau in Wales, Stradishall in Suffolk and Heathfield in Devon.

This free, in-depth resource pack shines a spotlight on 400 years of British emigration – one of the largest movements of people in modern history, yet a history that is often overlooked. 

Who are the many millions who have departed these shores and why did they go? Can exploring their motivations help us better understand the motivations of people who arrive? What impact has this mass movement had on the world – and on Britain? Our resource pack features stories spanning four centuries – from Mayflower Pilgrims to Welsh emigrants to South America, Child migration schemes to the Windrush scandal.

This resource pack will be helpful to any student studying the impact of emigration from Britain; both on the countries people emigrated to, and on Britain itself. However, the resource pack is designed specifically for Key Stage 4 students studying GCSE History: AQA's ‘Migration, Empires and the Peoples’ unit. The pack was designed by David Cox and the Migration Museum, with input from AQA teachers and the board's History subject advisor.

The Departures: Understanding Emigration resource pack accompanies the Migration Museum’s Departures exhibition, but is designed to be used as a stand-alone resource, or in conjunction with a self-guided or facilitated learning visit to the exhibition. To find out more about organising a visit to Departures for your students, please contact our education manager Liberty Melly: liberty@migrationmuseum.org.