Scottish Connections

View the Migration Timeline

Further information is available by following the links.


1505

 

Africans attached to the court of King James IV of Scotland (musicians and performers).

Flemish weavers encouraged to settle.

 

1600

Jewish peddlers and hawkers.

Irish agricultural workers.

 

1707

Act of Union
English civil servants arrive after union of parliaments.

English soldiers (regiments based at Edinburgh Castle).

Dutch merchants.

African servants.

 

1745

Highland migration to Lowlands after failed Jacobite rebellion.

 

1785

Start of Highland Clearances and further Highland migration.

French weavers, craftsmen, musicians, teachers and shopkeepers.

African Caribbean Slaves or freed servants of Scottish Planters.

Indian servants and seamen, some stranded at ports. Indian students.

Italian musicians, actors, craftsmen and shopkeepers.

 

1800

Germans, Austrians.

 

1840-50s

Increased Irish migration, worked in agriculture, railways, building trade.

Increased Highland migration to industrialised lowlands.

 

1890

Increased Jewish migration (Lithuania, Poland and Russia, employed mainly in small-scale workshop trades e.g. tailoring, dressmaking, furniture-making).

Stranded African seamen.

Continued Irish migration.

 

1890-1914

Increased Italian migration, street vendors, shopkeepers.

Lithuanian migrants (Christian).

 

1920-1939

Jewish migration increased.

Basque refugees from fascism.

 

1945

Polish servicemen and refugees, Jewish and other European refugees.

 

1950-60s

Hong Kong Chinese agricultural workers.

Vietnamese fleeing war.

English disaffected city dwellers.

Palestinian refugees.

Skills shortage
Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Caribbean, East African Asian, Nigerian migrants

 

1970-80s

Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi internal migration in Scotland, widening of professions to include medicine, teaching, retailing.

Ugandan Asian refugees - businesspeople and traders.

Chilean academics and trade unionists fleeing Pinochet regime.

Increased English migration.

Vietnamese refugees.

1990s

Hong Kong Chinese leaving before the return of Hong Kong to China.

Refugees
Bosnian, Iranian, Kurdish, Pakistani, Kosovan, Iraqi, Algerian, Sudanese.

 

200s

Refugees
Afghan, Somalian

 

 

Migration from A8/A2 accession states since 2007.