Between 1891 and 1901 over 190,000 immigrants arrived in England via the Thames. Of these, 115,000 were of Russian or Polish nationality. Though many of them did not plan to stay in England, and would later migrate onwards to the United States, Canada or South Africa, the Thames was the primary point of entry for the majority of Jews arriving in Britain during this period.

The River Thames served as a gateway from Europe for poor Jewish migrants who had travelled from the Pale of Settlement to Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bremen, Hamburg, Libau and Rotterdam en route to England. Each day, hundreds of alien immigrants would arrive from these ports, the majority from Hamburg and Libau. Most of the immigrants arriving in Britain from Hamburg were recorded in the emigrant lists, which have been preserved in Hamburg State Archives.

Though the migrants travelling to London from Hamburg (45 per cent of the total) travelled in relative comfort, those arriving from the Baltic port of Libau (modern day Liepaja in Latvia) did so under appalling conditions.

The opening of the railway line between Kovno (modern-day Kaunas, in Lithuania) and Libau made emigration easier for Jews in the most northerly parts of the Pale of Settlement (Kovno, Vilna, Vitebsk and Minsk). Military developments at the port also improved the facilities for cargo ships collecting horses, foodstuffs and passengers from this region of Russia. Moreover, the emigrants did not have to cross the Russian border in order to reach Libau.

From 1896 onwards, emigration to London from Libau rose from just over 1,000 Russians and Poles a year to over 5,000 a year by 1900. Those leaving were predominantly Jewish.

Some immigrants, such as William Shalyt, were fortunate enough to bring gold roubles with them to England. As he put it in an oral testimony in 1975:

Many, however, had little money beyond what they had saved for the journey and the initial payment for lodgings in the East End. Before 1905 and the passage of the Aliens Act, unlike the United States Britain did not restrict settlement to those with a given minimum of money.

After the introduction of the 1905 Act, however, immigrants were required to demonstrate their self-sufficiency on entry by having £5 for themselves and £2 for each of their dependants. The limited means of most migrants were often further depleted by the need to bribe officials policing the Russian border, or the cost of lodgings in ports of departure.

Departure from the Pale was by foot or rail. The rail journey was time-consuming as the railway network was poorly developed. Each train carried cargo and passengers. The journey to a Baltic port of departure was an additional financial burden, but it was still considerably cheaper than the journey across Europe.

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