No Borders in the 19th Century

The development of migration control is quite a recent thing, with the first controls on immigration not coming into existence until 1905 with the Aliens Act. The introduction of this piece of legislation was due, in part, to a concerted campaign by sections of the trade union movement and socialist groups.

Jewish people suffering persecution in Tsarist Russia and Eastern Europe had been forced to flee in increasing numbers over the previous decade and anti-Semites had responded by agitating for restriction on entry to the UK. This was the era of mass migration into south Wales. During the second half of the 19th century 126,529 people moved into Glamorgan and Monmouthshire mostly from