Bradford Libraries, Archives & Information Service

african-caribbean and asian

The most recent migrations to Bradford, which took place from the mid-1950s onwards, also brought the largest influx of people to the city. These migrants came from Pakistan and from the New Commonwealth countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia.

The vast majority of these migrants were South Asians. The numbers of African-Caribbeans have been small compared with their sister communities in Leeds and Huddersfield. African-Caribbeans came during the labour shortages of the 1950s, working in public transport, the health service and manufacturing. Two-thirds came from Dominica and the remainder from Jamaica, Barbados and the Leeward and Windward Islands. As with other groups in Bradford, their migration was often done in stages, with the men arriving first and their wives and children following later.

A small number of Asians was present in Bradford before the Second World War, concentrated around the near end of Manchester Road. It was the changes in the city's textile industries in the mid-1950s which caused much larger numbers of South Asians to come to work in Bradford. During the 1950s many textile mills upgraded their machinery and changed from day and occasional evening shifts (often worked by women) to a 24-hour continental shift system. Legislation banning women from working nights, together with labour shortages, meant that Asian workers were recruited to staff the new night shifts.

Initially, Asian men came as short-term migrant workers, intending to work very hard and save money so that they could enjoy a better standard of living when they went back to Asia. Wages offered in Britain seemed a fortune compared to earnings at home. Among Pakistani migrants in the early 1960s, men outnumbered women by forty to one.

In the 1960s the UK introduced new immigration laws which made repeated trips between South Asia and Bradford more difficult. This, coupled with an economic downturn, resulted in many South Asians settling in Bradford, changing from migrant labourers to established communities.

The largest group among the Asian communities is of Pakistani origin; there are also Indian and Bangladeshi minorities. Almost all of the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are Muslim, while those of Indian origin are equally divided between Sikhs and Hindus. Among the Hindus the majority came either directly from Gujarat, or from Kenya and Uganda in the 1970s. Punjabi Hindus, and all the Sikhs, came from the Punjab either directly or via East Africa.

Around two thirds of South Asians live in four wards in the inner city. There are ethnic groupings, with Bangladeshis in the area between Manningham Lane and Midland Road, Sikhs in Bradford Moor and Toller Ward, and Gujarati Hindus in Little Horton and University Wards. The Urdu and Punjabi-speaking Mirpuri Pakistani community, because of its greater size is more dispersed, but is still mostly in the inner city. The concentration of South Asians in inner city areas is partly due to the desire to retain cultural and ethnic identity. However, discrimination has also played a role, both in terms of general white attitudes and also through restrictive loan practices by mortgage companies.