ABSTRACT
British society remains in its own perception dominated by the structure of social class. Class was a malleable concept, not one with fixed boundaries. However, the rise of the trade unions and the labour movement after 1880 did have an important impact on perceptions of social class. Women's role in society was strongly influenced by the way they were depicted in books, church literature, and in the expectations of family and women themselves. In those ways, women were marginalised in the structures of British society. Britain in the 1880-1919 period became more aware of migrant cultures. One which was already well known was that of the Irish mostly Catholic Irish although as many as a third in Liverpool and Glasgow were Protestant. But the 1880-1919 period witnessed large-scale Jewish immigration, and the beginnings of a significant non white population, composed mainly at this time of Arabs from Yemen.
