The few Jews in second class cabins could avoid the humiliation of a rigorous medical examination on arrival. Those travelling in third class or steerage (the majority of alien immigrants) were not so lucky, and anyone displaying signs of 'reportable illnesses' was detained on the floating isolation hospital moored in the River Humber (if landing at Hull), or taken to the urban fever hospital (if landing at Grimsby), for anything from a few days to several weeks.

Though the arrival of passengers was not always documented, as some ships were mostly carrying cargo, HM Customs recorded the arrival of each vessel in Bills of Entry that were published on a daily, twice weekly or weekly basis. Such Bills listed all the cargo on which duty was payable. They show that every vessel bringing Jews from Libau also carried bacon, eggs and horses. In contrast, vessels arriving from North Sea ports carried goods ranging from hemp, shoddy and cloth to raw materials such as pit props, timber and iron ore.

As well as being boarded by Customs and Port Sanitary Officials, after the Aliens Act in 1905 each ship arriving in the River Humber was visited by an Immigration Officer. At Hull in the early 20th-century, the officer concerned was Paul Julius Drasdo.

Drasdo, himself an immigrant from Berlin in 1880, married the daughter of one of Hull's emigration agents, and by the time the Aliens Act was passed had become Hull's leading emigration agent. He was then appointed Hull's official Immigration Officer. In this role he met (for a fee) every vessel bringing aliens to Hull, and arranged transport for those who had not already paid for onward rail travel.

Drasdo spoke several languages, including German, Yiddish and Russian, and could help the immigrants during their medical inspections and on disembarkation. His son, Frank Drasdo, later recalled in a television documentary interview the condition of immigrants arriving in Hull, and the role his father played in Jewish immigration to Leeds. Frank himself helped in the family business when large numbers of immigrants arrived.

Any delay before moving on meant a stay in a lodging house. These small and overcrowded hovels offered basic accommodation to tired travellers, whatever their religion. Generally one-man businesses, they profited from the migrants' need for shelter between arrival and the train journey across Britain for onward sea-travel, or else before settling in one of the provincial communities.

The lodging houses, though similar to those of the native working class, were frequently said to offer some of the worst living conditions. Because only the poorest would consider paying money to lodge in them, the landlords often took them on very short leases - for just a few weeks at a time, or even days.

Once grouped by destination, transmigrants were dispatched to their ports of departure, chiefly Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Southampton.

The immigrants planning to settle in Britain - typically in Sheffield, Leeds or Manchester - would, like the transmigrants, leave from the North Eastern Railway's Emigrant Waiting Room (at the Paragon Railway Station), or the "MS&L" (later Great Central Railway's) Emigrant Shelter at Grimsby. They would travel third-class - by the North Eastern Railway to Newcastle, by the London and North Western to Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool, the Lancashire and Yorkshire to Leeds, or the "MS&L/GCR" to Sheffield.

During the journey across country, each railway carriage was locked (for the safety of passengers). With no facilities on board the train, there were toilet stops at Sheffield, Leeds, Stalybridge or Smithy Bridge.

Montague Burton, founder of the world-famous tailoring company, is perhaps the most famous Litvak Jew to have arrived in Britain during the period of mass migration. .He arrived in Britain around 1900, most probably through Grimsby, and lived initially in Chesterfield, where he started his business. He moved on from there, however, because it lacked a Jewish community - and hence a synagogue - settling next in Sheffield and later in Leeds.

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