ABSTRACT

During the winter of 1950-51, the German Ministry of Labour asked the British Office of the Manpower Adviser in Wahnerheide for a list of addresses of those women who had been recruited under the North Sea scheme. The reply stated that although the Ministry of Labour in London was in possession of files on foreigners who were employed in Britain, they did not contain actual addresses or details on work placements.1 This lack of information at such an early stage gives an indication of the general difficulty getting socially and historically relevant data about migrants in post-war Britain. The ministry did not keep a central register, and further, the published information derived from censuses or other statistics raises more questions than it answers. Our efforts to shed light on those who returned home and those who remained are thus largely estimates. We have complemented this with an unusual, if not unique, source: the Alien Register of Salford, held at the Manchester Police Museum.