ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Britain's imperial past powerfully affected the country's response to post-Second World War immigration. It outlines the legislation relating to immigration and immigrants from 1948 to 1968. The legal position of Commonwealth immigrants explains the virtual absence of reliable data on the numbers and origins of immigrants before the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962. Chinese immigration began in the nineteenth century when single males travelled to the United Kingdom and settled in the major ports - chiefly London and Liverpool. Under the Imperial Act 1914, every person born in a British colony or dominion was deemed to be a British subject. The nature of the response by the then Department of Education to the arrival of ethnic minority children in schools was conditioned by the nature and structure of the school system in Britain. Environmental education comprehensive system of schools and deeply distrustful of what it perceived as a predominantly left-wing teaching force.
