Robert Tombs on English migration history

On 18 November 2015, Robert Tombs delivered our second Annual Lecture in partnership with the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. You can now listen to the full podcast below, or download the audio.

Migration has been a crucial element of British and English history. England emerged as a nation amid a period of migration. Its culture is a hybrid. Its modern experience has been shaped by an unprecedented outward and inward flow of peoples. This lecture aims to identify what is special and characteristic about the migration history of England and Britain, and reflect on the way in which migration has affected and still affects the life of the nation.

Robert Tombs is Professor of French History at Cambridge and author of The English and their History. He is a specialist in modern French history and on the Franco-British relationship. His most recent work has been an excursion into English history, though with something of a French perspective.

Audio

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
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 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

Video

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
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
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

Publications

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
Signposting to refugee and asylum seeker support organisations in London
A downloadable guide featuring a selection of organisations supporting refugees and asylum seekers in London. Read more
Exploring how migration changes the places where we live
Migration has a major impact on local communities. In a series of videos produced as part of Migration Making Places, Making People: New Narratives of Inclusion, a partnership project between COMPAS, The Open University, the Migration Museum Project and Counterpoints Arts, key policymakers, researchers and practitioners discuss issues ranging from solidarity to challenges migrants face and… Read more