ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a closer look at historiography of the Polish exile, trying to establish the reasons behind the limited interest in the Polish refugees expressed by British historians and contrasting it with a wide range of scholarly works published in Polish. It presents the subject of the Polish exiles in Britain and popularity they attracted in the 1830s and 1840s. Bernard Porter's classic study is the only one that touches on the significance and position of the Polish refugees among other national groups of exiles. Interestingly, even Porter does not look at the developments which took place in the 1830s, when the Poles were at the centre of British political and public interest, but concentrates on their fate in the 1850s. The chapter presents the fact that the Poles were 'the most numerous, the poorest, the most intractable, and the most permanent' of all emigres who arrived in Britain in the early and mid-nineteenth century.
