- Italian Briton
Infobox Ethnic group
group = Italian Briton
"Britanno Italiano"
caption = Notable Italian BritonsFrankie Dettori ·Lawrence Dallaglio ·John Florio Benjamin Disraeli ·Dante Gabriel Rossetti
poptime = 150,000 Italian Born 300,000 - 500,000 Italian Ancestry Up to almost 1% of total British population
Unknown Numbers of Partial Ancestry, due to the huge numbers of Italians residing in the UK over several centuriespopplace =
Wales ·Peterborough ·Manchester ·Glasgow ·Chelsea·South Kensington ·Bedford ·Westminster ·Kensington
langs =British English ·Italian (and related forms)
rels = PredominantlyRoman Catholic ·Anglican
related = Italian, English, Scots, Welsh, Maltese,Gibraltarians Italian Britons also known as Britalians, are British citizens whose ancestry originates in
Italy . The phrase may refer to someone born in theUnited Kingdom of Italian descent, someone who has themselves emigrated from Italy to the United Kingdom or someone born elsewhere (eg theUnited States ) who are of Italian descent and have migrated to the UK. More specific terms used to describe Italian British people include:Italian English ,Italian Scots and Italian Welsh.According to the 2001 census a total of 107,002 Italian-born people are currently living in the United Kingdom, of whom 38,694 reside in
London . [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/countries/html/italy.stm Born Abroad: An immigration map of Britain] British Broadcasting Corporation (retrieved24 August 2007 )] The British Embassy recently estimated that 19,000 Britons reside in Italy, and 150,000 Italians reside in the UK. [ [http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1056116855010 Bilateral Relations British Embassy, Italy ] ] Up to 500,000 British people have some Italian ancestryFact|date=August 2008, with theItalian language being the first language of 200,000 Britons. [ [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=GB 200,000 Britons speak Italian as a mother tounge] ]Roman Britain
The Romans were the first Italians to settle in the
British Isles who came as far back as AD 43, when EmperorClaudius invaded.Fifteenth to eighteenth centuries
According to historian Michael Wayatt, there was "a small but influential community" of Italians "that took shape in
England in the fifteenth century initially consisting ofecclesiastic s,humanists ,merchants ,bankers , andartists ." [Wyatt, Michael [http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521848962 The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation] (Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture No.51) Cambridge University Press, December 2005] In the aftermath of theEnglish Reformation , amongst other religious refugees from theEurope an continent, many ItalianProtestant s found Tudor England to be a hospitable haven, and brought with them cultural Italian ties. The fifteenth century also saw the birth of a pivotal Italo-Englishman in the form ofJohn Florio , a famedlanguage teacher,lexicographer , andtranslator . The Titus family is another significant group that settled in England in the time of theRenaissance .The arts flourished under the Hanoverian dynasty and this attracted many more Italian artists and musicians to Britain.
econd World War
When the dictator
Benito Mussolini declared war on the Allies in June 1940, angry mobs attacked Italian restaurants and ice-cream parlours. Many Italians living in Britain were interned. Amongst some of the Italians interned were Mussolini's left-wing opponents who had fled to Britain after being involved inanti-fascist activities in Italy.Italians were held in various camps all over the country. Eventually, like other refugees, they would appear before tribunals individually, which had them classified into one of three groupings: "A class aliens" were interned, "B class aliens" were allowed to leave the camps but had certain restrictions placed upon their movements, and the vast majority of refugees, identified as "C class aliens", were allowed to go free. The
Home Secretary , Sir John Anderson, ordered the arrest of over 2,000 male aliens living in coastal areas on 12 June 1940. A few days later all "B class aliens" were placed into internment camps. Theauthor ,H. G. Wells , joined the campaign against this, and accused theHome Office of being run by "Nazi sympathisers". He pointed out that a large number of those interned had a long record of being involved in anti-fascist activities inGermany and Italy. Many of these people were deported toCanada andAustralia after theWar Cabinet had decided to expel them. [ [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWitaliansBR.htm Italians In Britain] Spartacus Educational (retrieved24 August 2007 )]The 1,500 ton SS
Arandora Star set sail fromLiverpool bound for Canada early on 01 July 1940. On 02 July at 07:00 am the ship was torpedoed 125 miles west ofIreland by the German U Boat 47 under the command ofKorvettenkapitän Günther Prien . The Arandorra Star sank within 30 minutes, with a loss of over 700 lives. The sinking was, and still is, the most tragic event in the history of the Italian community: no other Italian community in the world has suffered such a blow. [Colpi, Terry "The Italian Factor: the Italian Community in Great Britain" (pp.115-124) Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 1991] On the 19 July the Home Secretary, wrote a letter to Lord Halifax, theForeign Secretary , in which he made it clear that he realised mistakes had been made in selecting Italians for the Arandora Star. [Foreign Office File FO 916 2581 folio 548] Lord Snell was charged with conducting a government inquiry into the tragedy. He recognised that the method of selecting "dangerous" Italians was not satisfactory and the result was that among those earmarked for deportation were a number of non-fascists and people whose sympathies lay with Britain. [Foreign Office File FO 371 25210]Post-War to the present
See also: Lists of U.K. locations with large Italian populations
The region of the country containing the most Italian Britons is
London , where there are over 50,000 people of Italian origin live [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/countries/html/italy.stm] ,Manchester , where 25,000 Italians live [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3223776.stm] ,Bedford , where there are over 14,000 people of Italian origin living, [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/immig_emig/england/beds_herts_bucks/index.shtml Bedford's Italian question] British Broadcasting Corporation (retrieved24 August 2007 )] andPeterborough has the highest concentration of Italian immigrants in the UK. This is mainly as a result of labour recruitment in the 1950s by theLondon Brick Company in the southern Italian regions of Puglia andCampania . By 1960 approximately 7,500 Italian men were employed by London Brick in Bedford and a further 3,000 in Peterborough. [Colpi, op. cit. (p.149)] In 1962 the Scalabrini Fathers, who first arrived in Peterborough in 1956, purchased an old school and converted it into a church named after thepatron saint of workers San Giuseppe. By 1991 over 3,000 christenings of second-generation Italians had been carried out there. [Ibid. (p.235)]Famous Italian Britons
References
ee also
*
Romano-British
*Ethnic groups of the United Kingdom
*Lists of U.K. locations with large Italian populations
*British-Italian relations
*List of Italian Britons
*Italian diaspora External links
* [http://www.british-italian.org/ The British Italian Society] en icon
* [http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/Onlineresources/RWWC/themes/1295/1152 Museum of London: Reassessing what we collect: Italian London] en icon
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