The post-war migratory flow of South Asian and Caribbean workers into the City of Oxford began in the mid 1950s. This reflected the situation nationally as migration into Britain from its former colonies only became numerically significant after 1952. The economic expansion in Britain after the Second World War, and the resulting shortages of labour, attracted immigrant workers from many parts of the Commonwealth.

Oxford fits quite neatly into this pattern. It was not until the mid-1950s, when there was an opening for poorly paid, unskilled and semi-skilled labourers in Oxford, that the South Asians moved to Oxford in any great numbers

The first major influx of coloured immigrants is attributed to the failure of the local bus company, the City of Oxford Motor Services, to attract indigenous labour. With bus conductors and cleaners moving to better paid jobs, such as those offered at the Cowley car works, it is maintained that the bus service in some parts of Oxford was almost at a standstill. To meet this labour shortage, the bus company recruited some West Indians from the Brixton Labour Exchange in 1955.

Unskilled and semi-skilled labour in Oxford and around the country was also being lured away from British Rail, hospitals, construction firms, and other service industries, by the better paid car factory jobs. For Oxford city, there was a need to fill the less popular jobs in the service industries, and only Asians and Blacks were willing to move to fill this vacuum.

Together with the labour shortages, economic circumstances in other parts of the country also played an important part in the movement of Commonwealth immigrants to Oxford. The upsurge in the local population between 1958 and 1959 was a result of the 1958 recession in the North, which made the employment situation there a difficult one.

In the late 1950s, the bus company was the largest Oxford employer of Commonwealth immigrants, with 48 as conductors, 6 as cleaners and 1 as a driver. While the majority were Caribbean, South Asians were employed here too.

However, South Asians often found it more difficult to find work than migrants from the West Indies, partly because of language difficulties. They were mainly employed as kitchen porters in restaurants and hospitals. Many employers also operated a quota system restricting the number of black and Asian employees, and Asians were unable to get any work at all at several firms including Morris Motors Ltd., because of an unofficial colour bar.

Instances of discrimination like this were reduced, however, thanks to the work of the Oxford Committee for Racial Integration (OCRI).

But it was in the Indian restaurants that most Indians and Pakistanis were employed. A Bangladeshi restaurateur moved to Oxford from Fulham in 1956 and opened two restaurants - The Bombay Restaurant and Dil Duniya - on Walton Streeet. They provided accommodation not only for the restaurant workers, but for all Asian newcomers to Oxford. Accommodation and food were provided free and they were treated as guests until they found jobs and somewhere else to live.

The basement of Dil Duniya was used as a mosque with space for thirty people. For Friday prayers, the whole restaurant became a mosque. According to the proprietor's nephew, Mr Rojob: 'In 1960, the first Bengali started working in the Boffin Bakery in Osney. He impressed the management and they began to employ a lot of Asians. Soon, 80 per cent of the workers was Asian and this was so until the bakery closed in 1979.'

In 1962, Kelly's Directory shows six Indian restaurants listed in Oxford. The Himalaya on Cowley Road, which opened in 1962, attracted the student population from Magdalen College. They found that for little more than the price of a pint and a pork pie, they could get a hot, three-course lunch of curry and rice , fruit and coffee.

< Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >