ABSTRACT
Until the 1950s Britain was regarded as a cosmopolitan power and the core of a worldwide empire. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Britain should eventually have developed as a multi-cultural society based on a variety of ethnic groups from those areas which she had once colonised and a few she had not. This chapter focuses on the two main developments associated with this plural society. The first was the gradual build-up of substantial ethnic minorities through the process of immigration. And the second was the extent to which they harmonised with the existing population through the process of integration.
