ABSTRACT
Professor Linda Colley has traced the origins of 'Britishness' as far back as the eighteenth century, when following the Act of Union of 1707, a sense of British nationalism was created to bind English and Scots together. He explains how despite the British nation having emerged as a 'melting pot' of different cultures and influences; historically it was the feudal kingdom of England that became militarily and politically dominant. In 1948, the arrival of the first cohorts of non-white New Commonwealth immigrants to British shores would inaugurate an unprecedented era of immigration, nationality and race relations legislation aimed at their successors. Government's reaction to New Commonwealth migrants had been geared towards the preservation of the status quo. The Education Act 1944 can thus be said to reflect a prevailing laissez-faire attitude towards the New Commonwealth migrant question.
