British Poles, alternatively known as Polish British people or Polish Britons, are ethnic
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in C ...
who are citizens of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. The term includes people born in the UK who are of Polish descent and Polish-born people who reside in the UK. There are approximately 700,000 people born in Poland resident in the UK. Since the late 20th century, they have become one of the
largest ethnic minorities in the country alongside
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
,
Indians,
Pakistanis,
Bangladeshis
Bangladeshis ( bn, বাংলাদেশী ) are the citizens of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centered on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the eponymous bay.
Bangladeshi citizenship was formed in 1971, when the ...
,
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
, and
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
. The
Polish language
Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In a ...
is the second-most spoken language in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and the third-most spoken in the UK after English and
Welsh. About 1% of the UK population speaks Polish. The Polish population in the UK has increased more than tenfold since 2001.
Exchanges between the two countries date to medieval times, when the
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, ...
and the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi- confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Poland and Lithuania ru ...
were linked by trade and diplomacy. A notable 16th-century Polish resident in England was
John Laski, a Protestant convert who influenced the course of the
English Reformation and helped in establishing the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
. Following the 18th-century dismemberment of the Commonwealth in
three successive partitions by Poland's neighbours, the trickle of Polish immigrants to Britain increased in the aftermath of two 19th-century uprisings (
1831
Events
January–March
* January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing '' The Liberator'', an anti- slavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts.
* January 10 – Japanese department store, Takashimaya in Ky ...
and
1863
Events
January–March
* January 1 – Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation during the third year of the American Civil War, making the abolition of slavery in the Confederate states an official war goal. It proclaim ...
) that forced much of Poland's social and political elite into exile.
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
became a haven for the burgeoning ideas of Polish socialism as a solution for regaining independence as it sought international support for the forthcoming
Polish uprising
This is a chronological list of military conflicts in which Polish armed forces fought or took place on Polish territory from the reign of Mieszko I (960–992) to the ongoing military operations.
This list does not include peacekeeping operation ...
. A number of Polish exiles fought in the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
on the British side. In the late 19th century governments mounted
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
s against
Polish Jews
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the l ...
in the Russian (
Congress Poland) and Austrian sectors of partitioned Poland (
Galicia). Many Polish Jews fled their partitioned homeland, and most
emigrated to the United States, but some settled in British cities, especially
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
,
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
and
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-ea ...
.
The number of Poles in Britain increased during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. Most of the Polish people who came to the United Kingdom at that time came as part of military units reconstituted outside Poland after the German-Soviet
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
in September 1939, which marked the beginning of World War II. On 3 September 1939, Britain and France, which were allied with Poland, declared war on Germany. Poland moved
its government abroad, first to France and, after its fall in May 1940, to London. The Poles
contributed greatly to the Allied war effort; Polish naval units were the first Polish forces to integrate with the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
under the "
Peking Plan
The Peking Plan"Peking" was one contemporary spelling for the city now spelled 'Beijing' in English. In modern Polish the name is written as "Pekin". Some modern Polish works refer to the "Pekin Plan". The original orders used the spelling " ...
". Polish pilots played a conspicuous role in the
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
and the Polish army formed in Britain later participated in the
Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. The great majority of Polish military veterans were stranded in Britain after the Soviet Union imposed communist control on Poland after the war. This particularly concerned Polish soldiers from eastern areas, which were no longer part of Poland as a result of
border changes due to the
Potsdam Agreement. The
Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...
, though denied majority international recognition after 1945, remained at its post in London until it formally dissolved in 1991, after a democratically elected president had taken office in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
.
The
European Union's 2004 enlargement and the
UK Government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal Arms
, date_est ...
's decision to allow immigration from the new
accession states, encouraged Polish people to move to Britain rather than
to Germany. Additionally, the Polish diaspora in Britain includes descendants of the nearly 200,000 Polish people who had originally settled in Britain after the Second World War. About one-fifth had moved to settle in other parts of the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
.
History
![Poland Street, London](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Poland_Street%2C_London.JPG)
A Polish cleric named
John Laski (1499–1560), nephew of
Jan Łaski
Jan Łaski or Johannes à Lasco (1499 – 8 January 1560) was a Polish Calvinist reformer. Owing to his influential work in England (1548–1553) during the English Reformation, he is known to the English-speaking world by the Anglicised form J ...
(1456–1531), converted to
Calvinism
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...
while in
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
, Switzerland, where he became an associate of
Archbishop Cranmer. After moving to London, in 1550 he was superintendent of the
Strangers' Church of London and had some influence on ecclesiastical affairs in the reign of
Edward VI
Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...
.
Laski also spent some years working on the establishment of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
.
Shortly before his death, he was recalled to Poland's royal court.
In the 16th century, when most
grain imports to the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
came from Poland, Polish merchants and diplomats regularly travelled there, usually on the
Eastland Company
The Eastland Company, or North Sea Company, was an English crown-chartered company, founded in 1579 to foster trade with Scandinavia and Baltic Sea states. Like the better-known Russia Company, this was an attempt by the English to challenge the ...
trade route from
Gdańsk to
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
mentions Polish people in his play ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' (e.g. "sledded polack"), which
Israel Gollancz attributes to influence of the book, ''
De optimo senatore'' (The Accomplished Senator), by
Laurentius Grimaldius Goslicius (Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki, a Polish bishop and noble). Gollancz further speculated that the book inspired Shakespeare to create the character
Polonius
Polonius is a character in William Shakespeare's play ''Hamlet''. He is chief counsellor of the play's ultimate villain, Claudius, and the father of Laertes and Ophelia. Generally regarded as wrong in every judgment he makes over the course o ...
, which is
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "Polish".
After Poland's
King John III, at the head of a coalition of European armies, defeated the invading
Ottoman forces at the
1683 Ottoman siege of Vienna, a pub in London's
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was develo ...
district was named "The King of Poland" in his honour, and soon afterward the street on which it stands was named Poland Street (and continues to be so to this day). In the 18th century, Polish
Protestants settled around Poland Street as religious refugees fleeing the
Catholic Reformation
The Counter-Reformation (), also called the Catholic Reformation () or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) a ...
in Poland.
18th century
![Bacciarelli Stanislaus Augustus in a feathered hat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Bacciarelli_Stanislaus_Augustus_in_a_feathered_hat.jpg)
As a young man of the
Enlightenment, and already befriended by a Welsh diplomat, Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, KB (8 December 1708 – 2 November 1759) was a Welsh diplomat, writer and satirist. He was a Member of Parliament from 1734 until his death.
Early life
Hanbury was the son of a Welsh ironmaster and Member of Parl ...
, the young
Stanislaus Poniatowski Stanislav and variants may refer to:
People
*Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.)
Places
* Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine
* Stanislaus County, Cali ...
, future and last
King of Poland, stayed in Britain for some months during 1754. On this trip he also came to know
Charles Yorke
Charles Yorke PC (30 December 172220 January 1770) was briefly Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. His father was also Lord Chancellor, and he began his career as a Member of Parliament. He served successively as Solicitor-General and Att ...
, the
Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.
![Dulwich Picture Gallery, main entrance](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Dulwich_Picture_Gallery%2C_main_entrance.JPG)
In 1788, during the closing years of
Stanislaus Augustus Stanislav and variants may refer to:
People
*Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.)
Places
* Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine
* Stanislaus County, Cali ...
' reign, after the
first Partition of Poland in 1772, the Polish called a special assembly, known to history as the
Four Years Diet or "Great Sejm" whose great achievement was to be the
Constitution of 3 May 1791
The Constitution of 3 May 1791,; lt, Gegužės trečiosios konstitucija titled the Governance Act, was a constitution adopted by the Great Sejm ("Four-Year Sejm", meeting in 1788–1792) for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a dual mo ...
. In that period Poland sought support from the
Kingdom of Great Britain
The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a Sovereign state, sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of ...
in its negotiations with
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
in an effort to stave off further threats from Russia and from its own plotting
magnates
The magnate term, from the late Latin ''magnas'', a great man, itself from Latin ''magnus'', "great", means a man from the higher nobility, a man who belongs to the high office-holders, or a man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or ot ...
.
In 1790, King Stanislaus Augustus sent
Michał Kleofas Ogiński
Michał Kleofas Ogiński (25 September 176515 October 1833) was a Polish diplomat and politician, Grand Treasurer of Lithuania, and a senator of Tsar Alexander I. He was also a composer of early Romantic music.
Early life
Ogiński was born i ...
(also a composer and mentor to
Frederic Chopin Frederic may refer to:
Places United States
* Frederic, Wisconsin, a village in Polk County
* Frederic Township, Michigan, a township in Crawford County
** Frederic, Michigan, an unincorporated community
Other uses
* Frederic (band), a Japanese r ...
) on an embassy to London to meet with Prime Minister
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ire ...
. The British were prepared, along with the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, to propose a favourable commercial treaty for Polish goods, especially flax, if Poland ceded the cities of
Gdańsk and
Toruń
)''
, image_skyline =
, image_caption =
, image_flag = POL Toruń flag.svg
, image_shield = POL Toruń COA.svg
, nickname = City of Angels, Gingerbread city, Copernicus Town
, pushpin_map = Kuyavian-Pom ...
to the Prussians. This condition was unacceptable to Poland.
Stanislaus Augustus also commissioned the London art dealership of Bourgeois and Desenfans to assemble a collection of
paintings for Poland to encourage arts in the Commonwealth. The dealers fulfilled their commission, but five years later Poland as a state ceased to exist following the
third and final Partition. The art collection destined for Poland became the nucleus of the
Dulwich Picture Gallery
Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, South London, which opened to the public in 1817. It was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane using an innovative and influential method of illumination. Dulwich is the oldest pub ...
in South London.
19th century
In the 19th century, Polish-British relations took on a cultural dimension, with musical tours in the United Kingdom by virtuosos and composers including
Maria Szymanowska,
Frederic Chopin Frederic may refer to:
Places United States
* Frederic, Wisconsin, a village in Polk County
* Frederic Township, Michigan, a township in Crawford County
** Frederic, Michigan, an unincorporated community
Other uses
* Frederic (band), a Japanese r ...
,
Maria Kalergis and
Henryk Wieniawski.
![Frederic Chopin photo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Frederic_Chopin_photo.jpeg)
During the
November 1830 Uprising against the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, British military equipment and armaments were sent to Poland, facilitated by the presence of Leon Łubieński studying at
Edinburgh University
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted ...
at the time and the swift despatch to Britain of his uncle, Józef, to secure the shipment. After the collapse of the rebellion in 1831, many Polish exiles sought sanctuary in Britain.
One of them was the veteran and inventor,
Edward Jełowicki, who took out a
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
in London on his
Steam turbine. The fall of Warsaw and the arrival of the Poles on British shores prompted poet
Thomas Campbell with others to create in 1832 a
Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, with the aim of keeping British public opinion informed of Poland's plight. The Association had several regional centres; one of its meetings was addressed by the Polish statesman, Count
Adam Jerzy Czartoryski
Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (; lt, Аdomas Jurgis Čartoriskis; 14 January 177015 July 1861), in English known as Adam George Czartoryski, was a Polish nobleman, statesman, diplomat and author.
The son of a wealthy prince, he began his political c ...
. Czartoryski's permanent representative at the
Court of St James's was General Count
Władysław Stanisław Zamoyski, who later led a division in the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
on the British side against Russia. Zamoyski's adjutant was another Polish exile, an officer in the 5th Sultan's Cossacks—a Polish cavalry division—Colonel
Stanisław Julian Ostroróg
Count Stanisław Julian Ostroróg (1836– 31 May 1890) was an exiled Polish nobleman and Crimean War veteran. He later became known as an early professional portrait photographer who created photogravures, under the professional name of '' ...
. The last official Polish envoy to Britain was the statesman, writer, and
futurologist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...
,
Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz
Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz ( , ; 6 February 1758 – 21 May 1841) was a Polish poet, playwright and statesman. He was a leading advocate for the Constitution of 3 May 1791.
Early life
Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz was born 6 February 1758 in Skoki, nea ...
(1758–1841).
The
1848 revolution
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe ...
s in Europe gave impetus to a number of Polish socialist activists to settle in London and establish the ''"Gromada Londyn"'' between 1855 and 1861. They sought support from other European activists who were in the city forming the
First Internationale
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organization, international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different Left-wing politics, left-wing So ...
. The social connections formed between Poland and Britain encouraged the influential Polish
Łubieński family to forge further trade links between the two countries. The
anglophile
An Anglophile is a person who admires or loves England, its people, its culture, its language, and/or its various accents.
Etymology
The word is derived from the Latin word ''Anglii'' and Ancient Greek word φίλος ''philos'', meaning "frien ...
banker,
Henryk Łubieński prompted his business associate and Polish "King of Zinc",
Piotr Steinkeller, to open ''The London Zinc Works'' off
Wenlock Road in London's
Hoxton
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. As a part of Shoreditch, it is often considered to be part of the East End – the historic core of wider East London. It was historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. It li ...
in 1837, with a view to exporting zinc sheeting to
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. Moreover, two of Łubieński's grandsons were sent to board at the Catholic
Ushaw College
Ushaw College (formally St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw), is a former Catholic seminary near the village of Ushaw Moor, County Durham, England, which is now a heritage and cultural tourist attraction. The college is known for its Georgian and Vict ...
in
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
*County Durham, an English county
* Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
. Other relatives married into the old
recusant
Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation.
The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...
Grimshaw and Bodenham de la Barre family of
Rotherwas. Subsequently, the
Redemptorist
The Redemptorists officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer ( la, links=no, Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptoris), abbreviated CSsR,is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men (priests and brother ...
Venerable
The Venerable (''venerabilis'' in Latin) is a style, a title, or an epithet which is used in some Western Christian churches, or it is a translation of similar terms for clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy and monastics in Buddhism.
Christianity
Cat ...
Fr.
Bernard Łubieński (1846–1933) spent many years as a Catholic missionary in England. The
Polish Catholic Mission in England and Wales began its pastoral work for Polish émigrés in 1853 with church services in
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was develo ...
's Sutton Street and with the arrival of Sr.
Franciszka Siedliska
Maria Franciszka Siedliska (12 November 1842 – 21 November 1902), also known by her religious name Maria of Jesus the Good Shepherd, was a Polish Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazaret ...
and two other nuns to start a Polish school.
![Marks Michael Slonim](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Marks_Michael_Slonim.jpg)
The next Polish uprising, the
January 1863 Uprising, led to a further influx of Polish political exiles to Britain. Among them were people like
Walery Wróblewski and the only notable Polish
anarchist and follower of
Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary s ...
,
Walery Mroczkowski
Walery Karłowicz Mroczkowski (6 April 1840 – 1 October 1889) was a Polish insurgent in the 1863 January Uprising. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Prussian authorities. Upon release in 1865, he was sent into exile and travelled to Italy, ...
, member of the
First Internationale
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organization, international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different Left-wing politics, left-wing So ...
and opponent of
Marxist ideology. Polish Jews also fled due to the intensifying anti-Semitic
pogroms and better economic opportunities. Among the notable Polish Jews who came to Britain were
Henry Lowenfeld
Henry Lowenfeld in Polish, ''Henryk Loewenfeld'', (1 September 1859 - 4 November 1931) was a Polish-born British entrepreneur and theatrical impresario. He founded the Kops Brewery, the UK's first UK brewer of non-alcoholic beer, and built Lo ...
theatrical impresario and brewer,
Michael Marks
Michael Marks ( yi, מיכאל מארקס Polish: ''Michał Marks''; 1859? – 31 December 1907) was a businessman and entrepreneur, who with Thomas Spencer co-founded the British retail chain Marks & Spencer.
Biography
Marks was born into a ...
(co-founder of
Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...
), Morris Wartski (founder of
Wartski antique dealers) and the family of
Jack Cohen, the founder of
Tesco
Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...
.
![Joseph Conrad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Joseph_Conrad.PNG)
Perhaps the most famous Polish person to settle in Britain at the end of the 19th century, having gained British citizenship in 1886, was the seafarer turned early
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
novelist, Józef Korzeniowski, better known by his
pen name,
Joseph Conrad. He was the highly influential author of such works as ''
Almayer's Folly'', ''
The Nigger of the 'Narcissus''', ''
Heart of Darkness'', ''
Lord Jim
''Lord Jim'' is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' from October 1899 to November 1900. An early and primary event in the story is the abandonment of a passenger ship in distress by its crew, ...
'', ''
Nostromo
''Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard'' is a 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana". It was originally published serially in monthly instalments of '' T.P.'s Weekly''.
In 1998, the Modern Lib ...
'', ''
The Secret Agent
''The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale'' is a novel by Joseph Conrad, first published in 1907.. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia). ''The Secret Agent ...
'', ''The Duel'', ''
Under Western Eyes'' and ''
Victory
The term victory (from Latin ''victoria'') originally applied to warfare, and denotes success achieved in personal combat, after military operations in general or, by extension, in any competition. Success in a military campaign constitutes ...
'', many of which have been turned into films.
At the end of the 19th-century London, along with
Zurich and
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, had become one of the centres of Polish political activism, especially of the left.
Józef Piłsudski
Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Naczelnik państwa, Chief of State (1918–1922) and Marshal of Poland, First Marshal of Second Polish Republic, Poland (from 1920). He was ...
stayed in
Leytonstone
Leytonstone () is an area in east London, England, north-east of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest, a local authority district of Greater London. It adjoins Wanstead to the north-east, Forest Gate to the south-east, ...
after his escape from
St-Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. The political review, "Przedświt" ("Pre-Dawn") was published in
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...
for several years, notably under the editorship of
Leon Wasilewski
Leon Wasilewski (1870–1936) was an activist of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), a coworker of Józef Piłsudski, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, designer of much of Second Polish Republic policy towards Eastern Europe, historian and fa ...
1898–1903, later to become the first foreign minister of a newly independent Poland in 1918.
Both before and after the First World War, a few Poles settled in Londonfollowing the
Russian Revolution of 1905
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
and then in the war, those released from London's
prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war.
There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. ...
s for Germans and Austrians in the
Alexandra Palace and at
Feltham
Feltham () is a town in West London, England, from Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it became part of the London Borough of Hounslow in 1965. The parliamentary constituency of Feltham and Heston has been held by Labour Party ...
. In 1910 a sixteen-year old youth from Warsaw settled in London for the sake of his art: he was to be a future
ballet master,
Stanislas Idzikowski. Polish people living in the
Austrian and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
partitions had been obliged to serve in their respective national forces and were unable to return.
The resurgence of an
independent Poland in 1918, briefly complicated by the
Polish–Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War (Polish–Bolshevik War, Polish–Soviet War, Polish–Russian War 1919–1921)
* russian: Советско-польская война (''Sovetsko-polskaya voyna'', Soviet-Polish War), Польский фронт (' ...
from 1918 to 1920, enabled the country to rapidly reorganise its polity, develop its economy, and resume its place in international forums. One of the Polish delegates at the
Paris Peace Conference, was a London-based émigré, Count
Leon Ostroróg. This two-decade period of advance was disrupted in September 1939 by a coordinated
German and Soviet invasion that marked the beginning of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
Second World War
![The German-soviet Invasion of Poland, 1939 HU83158](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/The_German-soviet_Invasion_of_Poland%2C_1939_HU83158.jpg)
It was the
Polish contribution to the Allied war effort in the United Kingdom that led to the establishment of the postwar Polish community in Britain. During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, most of the Poles arrived as military or political émigrés as a result of the combined German-Soviet
occupation of Poland
Occupation commonly refers to:
* Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, t ...
.
As the invasion of Poland progressed throughout September 1939, the Polish government evacuated into
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
and from there to France. Based at first in Paris, it moved to
Angers
Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the pr ...
until June 1940, when France capitulated to the Germans.
[Jozef Garlinski ''Poland in the Second World War'', Page 81] With the
Fall of France, the
Polish Government-in-Exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...
relocated to London, along with a first wave of at least 20,000 soldiers and airmen in 1940. It was recognized by all the Allied governments. Politically, it was a coalition of the
Polish Peasant Party
The Polish People's Party ( pl, Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL) is an agrarian political party in Poland. It is currently led by Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.
Its history traces back to 1895, when it held the name People's Party, although i ...
, the
Polish Socialist Party
The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland.
It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' ...
, the Labour Party, and the
National Party. Although these parties maintained only a vestigial existence in the circumstances of the war, the tasks of the Government-in-Exile were immense, requiring open lines of communication with, and control of, the
Polish Underground State ''in situ'' and the
Polish Underground Army
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...
in
occupied Poland
' ( Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 Octobe ...
, and the maintenance of international diplomatic relations for the organization of regular Polish military forces in Allied states.
![Marian Rejewski 1932 small](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Marian_Rejewski_1932_small.jpg)
On 4 July 1943 the Polish Prime Minister-in-Exile, General
Wladyslaw Sikorski, who was also
Commander-in-Chief of the
Polish Armed Forces in the West
The Polish Armed Forces in the West () refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. Polish forces were also raised within Soviet territories; th ...
, died in an air crash off
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
as he was returning to Britain from an inspection tour of Polish forces in the Mediterranean theatre. Until the Germans' April 1943 discovery of mass graves of 28,000 executed Polish military reserve officers at
Katyn, near
Smolensk
Smolensk ( rus, Смоленск, p=smɐˈlʲensk, a=smolensk_ru.ogg) is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest ...
in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
, Sikorski had wished to work with the Soviets. After
Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Soviets' importance to the Western alliance had grown while British support for Polish aspirations had begun to decline. As the war progressed, Polish plans to more completely incorporate Poland's underground
Home Army
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) est ...
into the broader strategy of the Western allies—including contingency plans to move Polish Air Force fighter squadrons, and the Polish Parachute Brigade, to Poland—foundered on British and American reluctance to antagonise a vital Soviet ally hostile to Polish autonomy; on the distance from British-controlled bases to occupied Poland, which lay at the extreme flying range of available aircraft; and on the frittering away of the Polish Parachute Brigade on a patently flawed British operation at
Arnhem
Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both ban ...
, the Netherlands.
One of the most important Polish contributions to Allied victory had actually begun in late 1932, nearly seven years before the outbreak of war when the mathematician-
cryptologist
This is a list of cryptographers. Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties called adversaries.
Pre twentieth century
* Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi: wrote a (now lost) bo ...
Marian Rejewski, with limited aid from French military intelligence, constructed a double of the sight-unseen German
Enigma
Enigma may refer to:
*Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling
Biology
*ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain
Computing and technology
* Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup
* Enigma machine, a family ...
cipher machine used by the German civil and military authorities. Five weeks before the outbreak of war, in late July 1939, Rejewski and his fellow cryptologists,
Henryk Zygalski
Henryk Zygalski (; 15 July 1908 – 30 August 1978) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who worked at breaking German Enigma ciphers before and during World War II.
Life
Zygalski was born on 15 July 1908 in Posen, German Empire (now Pozn ...
and
Jerzy Rozycki had disclosed to French and British intelligence in Warsaw the techniques and technologies they had developed for "
breaking" German Enigma ciphers. Poland's ''
Biuro Szyfrów'' (Cipher Bureau, operated by the
Polish General Staff
Polish General Staff, formally known as the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces ( Polish: ''Sztab Generalny Wojska Polskiego'') is the highest professional body within the Polish Armed Forces. Organizationally, it is an integral part of the M ...
) gave the British and French an Enigma double, each. This enabled the British, who had been unable to break German Enigma
ciphers at
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years followin ...
, to develop their "
Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ' ...
" operation. At war's end, General
Dwight Eisenhower characterized Ultra as having been "decisive" to Allied victory. Former Bletchley Park cryptologist
Gordon Welchman
William Gordon Welchman (15 June 1906 – 8 October 1985) was a British mathematician. During World War II, he worked at Britain's secret codebreaking centre, "Station X" at Bletchley Park, where he was one of the most important contributors. ...
wrote: "Ultra would never have got off the ground if we had not learned from the Polish, in the nick of time, details both of the German military... the Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use
y the Germans"
Polish Navy
![Peking](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Peking.jpg)
The first Polish military branch to transfer substantial personnel and equipment to the United Kingdom was the
Polish Navy. Shortly before the outbreak of hostilities, the Polish government ordered three
destroyers, for their protection and in anticipation of joint operations with the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
, to sail for Great Britain (
Operation Peking). Two submarines also sailed there, the
''Orzeł'' (Eagle) arriving unannounced in Scotland after a daring breakout from the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...
following its illegal internment in Estonia.
![ORP Piorun2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/ORP_Piorun2.jpg)
Polish Navy personnel to come under Royal Navy command comprised 1,400 officers and 4,750 sailors. By chance, Poland's only two ocean-going commercial liners,
MS ''Piłsudski'' and
MS ''Batory'' were also on the high seas on 1 September 1939 and were both shortly thereafter requisitioned by the
British Admiralty for war service. The former was lost in November 1939 when it struck a
mine off the
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...
coast. ''Batory'', dubbed "''the Lucky ship''", became a troop and civilian carrier and
hospital ship
A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating medical treatment facility or hospital. Most are operated by the military forces (mostly navies) of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or near war zones. I ...
. It effected a major evacuation during the
Battle of Narvik
The Battles of Narvik were fought from 9 April to 8 June 1940, as a naval battle in the Ofotfjord and as a land battle in the mountains surrounding the north Norwegian town of Narvik, as part of the Norwegian Campaign of the Second World War. ...
and completed hundreds of convoys on the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...
and on the
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
, before being surrendered to the control of the communist authorities in Warsaw in 1946.
In May 1941, the Polish
destroyer ''
Piorun''—Thunderbolt—was able to locate and engage the world's most powerful
battleship, ''
Bismarck'', drawing its fire for an hour while the Royal Navy caught up in time to destroy the German warship.
![Dywizjon 303 in color](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Dywizjon_303_in_color.jpg)
The Poles formed the fourth-largest Allied armed force after the Soviets, the Americans, and the combined troops of the British Empire. They were the largest group of
non-British personnel in the RAF during the Battle of Britain
The Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm had included personnel from outside the United Kingdom from before the beginning of the Second World War, and many served in the Battle of Britain in summer 1940. Many of these volunteers were British ...
, and the
303 Polish Squadron
No. 303 Squadron RAF, also known as the 303rd "Tadeusz Kościuszko Warsaw" Fighter Squadron, was one of two Polish squadrons that fought during the Battle of Britain along with No. 302 Squadron, of 16 total Polish squadrons in the Royal Air ...
was the most successful RAF unit in the
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
.
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
had a large section of covert, elite Polish troops who cooperated closely with the
Polish underground army
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...
.
By July 1945 there were 228,000 troops of the Polish Armed Forces in the West serving under the British.
Many of these men and women came from the ''
Kresy
Eastern Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands ( pl, Kresy, ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the History of Poland (1918–1939), interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural ...
'' region (eastern Poland), including from the major cities of
Lwów (now
Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...
, Ukraine) and
Wilno
Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...
(now
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
, Lithuania). They had been deported by the Soviets from the ''Kresy'' to the
gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
s when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union occupied Poland in 1939 under the
Nazi-Soviet Pact. Two years later, when Churchill and
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
formed an alliance against
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
, the mostly "''Kresy'' Poles" were released from the Gulags in Siberia to form "
Anders' Army
Anders' Army was the informal yet common name of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in the 1941–42 period, in recognition of its commander Władysław Anders. The army was created in the Soviet Union but, in March 1942, based on an understand ...
" and were made to walk via
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
,
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
and
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...
, where thousands perished on the way, to
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. There the Polish
II Corps came into being under British command. They fought in the battles of
Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley, Italy, west of Cassino and at an elevation of . Site of the Roman town of Casinum, it is widely known for its abbey, the first ho ...
,
the Falaise Gap,
Arnhem
Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both ban ...
,
Tobruk
Tobruk or Tobruck (; grc, Ἀντίπυργος, ''Antipyrgos''; la, Antipyrgus; it, Tobruch; ar, طبرق, Tubruq ''Ṭubruq''; also transliterated as ''Tobruch'' and ''Tubruk'') is a port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near ...
, and in the liberation of many European cities, including
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
and
Breda.
![Winston Churchill reviewing Polish troops in England](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Winston_Churchill_reviewing_Polish_troops_in_England.PNG)
The Polish troops who contributed to the
Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy, had expected to be able to return at war's end to their ''
Kresy
Eastern Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands ( pl, Kresy, ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the History of Poland (1918–1939), interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural ...
'' (eastern Polish) homeland in an independent and democratic Poland. But at
Yalta
Yalta (: Я́лта) is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Cri ...
, Roosevelt and Churchill acquiesced in Stalin's Soviet Union annexation of the ''Kresy'' lands (roughly half of pre-war Poland's landmass), in accordance with the provisions of the 1939
Nazi-Soviet Pact. This entailed massive
postwar Polish population deportations to western so-called "
Recovered Territories
The Recovered Territories or Regained Lands ( pl, Ziemie Odzyskane), also known as Western Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Zachodnie), and previously as Western and Northern Territories ( pl, Ziemie Zachodnie i Północne), Postulated Territories ( pl, Z ...
" assigned from Germany to Poland. The great majority of Polish soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the West would never return to their homeland. In apparent reaction to British acquiescence in Poland's postwar future, thirty officers and men of the
Polish II Corps
The Polish II Corps ( pl, Drugi Korpus Wojska Polskiego), 1943–1947, was a major tactical and operational unit of the Polish Armed Forces in the West during World War II. It was commanded by Lieutenant General Władysław Anders and fought wit ...
committed suicide.
[Olson and Cloud (2003), pp. 374–383.]
Churchill explained the government's actions in a three-day
Parliamentary
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
debate, begun on 27 February 1945, which ended in a
vote of confidence
A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...
. Many
MPs openly criticised Churchill over Yalta and voiced strong loyalty to the UK's Polish allies.
Churchill may not have been confident that Poland would be the independent and democratic country to which Polish troops could return; he said: "His Majesty's Government will never forget the debt they owe to the Polish troops... I earnestly hope it will be possible for them to have citizenship and freedom of the British Empire, if they so desire."
During the debate, 25 MPs and Peers risked their future political careers to draft an amendment protesting against the UK's acceptance of a geographically reconfigured Poland's integration into the Soviet sphere of influence, thereby shifting it westwards into the heart of Europe. These members included
Arthur Greenwood
Arthur Greenwood, (8 February 1880 – 9 June 1954) was a British politician. A prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s, Greenwood rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department f ...
,
Sir Archibald Southby,
Sir Alec Douglas-Home
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel (; 2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995), styled as Lord Dunglass between 1918 and 1951 and being The 14th Earl of Home from 1951 till 1963, was a British Conservative politician who se ...
,
Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and
Victor Raikes.
After the amendment was defeated,
Henry Strauss, MP for
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, resigned his seat in protest at the British government's abandonment of Poland.
The
Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum
The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum ( pl, Instytut Polski i Muzeum im. Gen. Sikorskiego), known as Sikorski Institute, named after General Władysław Sikorski, is a leading London-based museum and archive for research into Poland during W ...
in London are the repository for archival material relating to this period.
Private Wojtek
![wojtek the bear](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Wojtek_the_bear.jpg)
During their 1942 evacuation from the Soviet Union to the
Near East, soldiers of the Polish Second Corps had, at an Iranian railroad station, purchased a
Syrian brown bear cub. He travelled with them on the Polish troop-transport ship ''
Kościuszko'' and subsequently accompanied them to Egypt and to the
Italian campaign. In Italy he helped shift ammunition crates and became a celebrity with visiting Allied generals and statesmen.
In order to bring him to Italy, as regimental mascots and pets were not allowed onboard transport ships, the bear was formally enrolled as Private Wojciech Perski (his surname being the Polish adjective meaning "Persian"; Wojtek is the diminutive for ''Wojciech'').
After the war, mustered out of the Polish Army, Wojtek was billeted, and lived out his retirement, at the
Edinburgh Zoo
Edinburgh Zoo, formerly the Scottish National Zoological Park, is an non-profit zoological park in the Corstorphine area of Edinburgh, Scotland.
The land lies on the south facing slopes of Corstorphine Hill, from which it provides extensive v ...
, where he was visited by fellow exiles and former Polish comrades-in-arms and won the affection of the public. Posthumously he has inspired books, films, plaques, and statues in the UK and Poland.
Post World War II
Polish Resettlement Corps 1946–49
Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, many thousands of Polish servicemen and women made their way via Hungary and Romania (which then had common borders with Poland) to France, where they again fought against the invading Germans; and in 1942 the newly formed Polish Second Corps evacuated from the Soviet Union, via
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, to the Near East, subsequently fighting in campaigns there and in North Africa, Italy, and northwest Europe. Some Second Corps personnel transferred from the Near East into Polish Armed Services units in the UK.
At war's end, many of the Poles were transported to, and stayed in, camps in the United Kingdom. In order to ease their transition from a Polish-British military environment to British civilian life, a satisfactory means of demobilisation was sought by British authorities. This took the form of a
Polish Resettlement Corps
The Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC; pl, Polski Korpus Przysposobienia i Rozmieszczenia) was an organisation formed by the British Government in 1946 as a holding unit for members of the Polish Armed Forces who had been serving with the British Arm ...
(PRC), as an integral corps of the British Army, into which the Poles who wished to stay in the UK could enlist for the transitional period of their demobilisation.
The PRC was formed in 1946 (Army Order 96 of 1946) and was disbanded after fulfilling its purpose in 1949 (Army Order 2 of 1950).
Polish Resettlement Act 1947
![Ognisko Polskie 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Ognisko_Polskie_1.JPG)
When the Second World War ended, a communist government was installed in Poland. Most Poles
felt betrayed by their wartime allies and declined to "return to Poland" either because their homeland had become a hostile foreign state or because of
Soviet repressions of Poles, Soviet conduct during the
Warsaw uprising of 1944, the
trial of the Sixteen
The Trial of the Sixteen ( pl, Proces szesnastu) was a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet authorities in Moscow in 1945. All captives were kidnapped by the NKVD secret service and falsely accused of var ...
, and executions of former members of the
Home Army
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) est ...
. To accommodate Poles unable to return to their home country, Britain enacted the
Polish Resettlement Act of 1947, Britain's first mass immigration law. Initially, a very large Polish community was centred around
Swindon, where many military personnel had been stationed during the war.
After occupying Polish Resettlement Corps camps, many Poles settled in London and other conurbations, many of them recruited as European Volunteer Workers. Many others settled in the British Empire, forming large
Polish Canadian and
Polish Australian communities, or in the United States and Argentina.
Post-war dispersal and settlement
In the 1951 UK Census, some 162,339 residents had listed Poland as their birthplace, up from 44,642 in 1931.
Polish arrivals to the UK included survivors of German
concentration
In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', ''molar concentration'', '' number concentration'', ...
and
POW camps
A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war.
There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. ...
and war wounded needing additional help adapting to civilian life. This help was provided by a range of charitable endeavours, some coordinated by
Sue Ryder
Margaret Susan Cheshire, Baroness Ryder of Warsaw, Lady Cheshire, (''née'' Ryder; 3 July 1924 – 2 November 2000), best known as Sue Ryder, was a British volunteer with Special Operations Executive in the Second World War, and a membe ...
(1924–2000), a British humanitarian who, as Baroness Ryder of Warsaw, was later raised to the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
and spoke there in the cause of Poland.
![EWS21](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/EWS21.13.jpg)
Another British woman, Dame
Cicely Saunders
Dame Cicely Mary Strode Saunders (22 June 1918 – 14 July 2005) was an English nurse, social worker, physician and writer. She is noted for her work in terminal care research and her role in the birth of the hospice movement, emphasising the i ...
, was inspired by three
displaced Polish men to revolutionise
palliative care
Palliative care (derived from the Latin root , or 'to cloak') is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Wit ...
and care of the dying. She met the first two, David Tasma—who had escaped from the
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...
—and Antoni Michniewicz, as they were dying. The third Pole,
Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, a painter and art critic, supported her work and became her husband in old age. Saunders is considered the founder of the
hospice movement.
![Kościół sw](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Ko%C5%9Bci%C3%B3%C5%82_sw._Andrzeja_Boboli_5.JPG)
Britain's Polish immigrants tended to settle in areas near Polish churches and food outlets. In West London, they settled in
Earl's Court
Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...
, known in the 1950s as the "
Polish Corridor
The Polish Corridor (german: Polnischer Korridor; pl, Pomorze, Polski Korytarz), also known as the Danzig Corridor, Corridor to the Sea or Gdańsk Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia (Pomeranian Voivodeship, easter ...
", in reference to the interwar Central European political entity and, as house prices rose, they moved to
Hammersmith, then
Ealing, and in South London, to
Lewisham
Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in the London Plan as one of ...
and
Balham. As these communities grew, even if many Poles had integrated with local British educational and religious institutions, the
Polish Catholic Mission in England and Wales, in agreement with the English and Scottish hierarchies, considered that Polish priests should minister to Polish parishioners. The original Polish church in London in Devonia Road,
Islington was bought in 1928 with much delay, following the First World War. However canonically, subsequent Polish "parishes" are actually branches of the Polish Catholic Mission and not parishes in the conventional sense and are accountable to the episcopate in Poland, through a vicar delegate, although each is located in a British Catholic diocese, to whom it owes the courtesy of being connected. The first post-war Polish "parish" in London was attached to
Brompton Oratory
Brompton Oratory is a large neo-classical Roman Catholic church in the Knightsbridge area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Its full name is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or as named in its Grade II* archite ...
in South Kensington, followed by a chapel in Willesden staffed by Polish
Jesuits
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders = ...
. Brockley-Lewisham was founded in 1951, followed by Clapham, while
St Andrew Bobola church in Shepherd's Bush (1962) was regarded as the "Polish garrison" church. Among its many commemorative plaques is one to a
clairvoyant
Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
and healer housewife and Soviet deportee, Waleria Sikorzyna: she had had a detailed premonitory dream two years before the 1939 invasion of Poland, but was politely dismissed by the Polish military authorities. Currently the Polish Catholic Mission operates around 219 parishes and pastoral centres with 114 priests throughout England and Wales. In 2007 Cardinal
Cormac Murphy-O'Connor
Cormac Murphy-O'Connor (24 August 1932 – 1 September 2017) was a British cardinal, the Archbishop of Westminster and president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. He was made cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001. He s ...
, primate of England, expressed concern "that Poles are creating a separate Church in Britain", but Polish rector, Mgr Kukla, responded that the Polish Catholic Mission continued to have a "good relationship" with the hierarchy in England and Wales and said that integration was a long process.
Cultural and educational ties with Poland
![IPMS](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/IPMS.jpg)
The social make-up of successive waves of Polish migration to the UK is comparable to 19th- and early-20th-century Polish migrations to France. In both cases, the original mainly political migrants were drawn largely from elite and educated strata and reflected the heterogeneity of their class, and they quickly established cultural institutions such as libraries and learned societies. They included representatives of past Polish minorities such as
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
,
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
,
Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, '' hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diasp ...
,
Georgians,
Ruthenians
Ruthenian and Ruthene are exonyms of Latin language, Latin origin, formerly used in Eastern and Central Europe as common ethnonyms for East Slavs, particularly during the late medieval and early modern periods. The Latin term Rutheni was used in ...
, and people of Muslim
Tatar
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different descent. In both cases, they were followed by waves of more socially-homogeneous economic migrants.
Since the Second World War, Poland has lost much of its earlier ethnic diversity, with the exception of
Polska Roma, a distinct
ethnolinguistic group
An ethnolinguistic group (or ethno-linguistic group) is a group that is unified by both a common ethnicity and language. Most ethnic groups share a first language. However, "ethnolinguistic" is often used to emphasise that language is a major ba ...
and other Polish
Roma communities, and this has been reflected in recent Polish migrations to the UK. A recent study of comparative literature by Mieczysŀaw Dąbrowski, of Warsaw University, appears to bear this out.
A key military and latterly, news and cultural role was played by broadcasts in Polish, beamed to Poland, from London by the
BBC's Polish section. They began on 7 September 1939 with coded messages among prosaic material for the Polish Underground and after expansion into
English by radio ended on 23 December 2005, a victim of budgetary cuts and new priorities.
Across the mainland UK, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the original Polish communities chiefly comprised former members of the
Polish Resettlement Corps
The Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC; pl, Polski Korpus Przysposobienia i Rozmieszczenia) was an organisation formed by the British Government in 1946 as a holding unit for members of the Polish Armed Forces who had been serving with the British Arm ...
. They set up Polish clubs, cultural centres, and adult and youth organisations, e.g., the Polish Youth Group (''KSMP''). They contributed to, and in turn were supported by, veterans' welfare charities such as veterans' ''SPK'' (Stowarzyszenie Polskich Kombatantów), airmen's and naval clubs. These organisations' original aims were to provide venues for socialising and exposure to Polish culture and heritage for children of former Polish Resettlement Corps members. Many of these groups remain active, and steps are being taken to cater to more recent Polish migrants.
The post-war phase saw a continuation of Polish intellectual and political life in microcosm in the UK, with the publication of newspapers and journals such as ''
Dziennik Polski
''Dziennik Polski'' is a Polish newspaper. It was established in 1945 as a regional newspaper for Lesser Poland
Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska ( la, Polonia Minor), is a historical region situated in southern ...
'' and ''Wiadomości'', the establishment of independent (of the Polish "regime") publishing houses such as "Veritas" and "Odnowa", with a worldwide reach, and professional theatrical productions under the auspices of a dramatic society, "Syrena". ''Orbis Books (London)'' was a bookseller, publishing house and for a time a record producer (under the label Polonia UK), founded in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
in 1944 by Kapt. Józef Olechnowicz, brought to
New Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and as ...
, London in 1946 and eventually bought by Jerzy Kulczycki in 1972. Poles in London played their part in the blossoming of modern art movements during the
Swinging Sixties. Chief among them were two gallery owners, the painter, Halima Nałęcz, at the ''Drian Gallery'' in
Bayswater and the pharmacist and philanthropist,
Mateusz Grabowski with his ''Grabowski Gallery'' in
Sloane Avenue
Sloane Avenue is a road in London.
Sloane Avenue runs roughly north-west to south-east from Brompton Road in Kensington to a junction with Elystan Place and Bray Place, and its short southern continuation, Anderson Street, joins the King's Road i ...
,
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area.
Chelsea histori ...
. Grabowski promoted Polish and other diaspora artists, such as
Pauline Boty
Pauline Boty (6 March 1938 – 1 July 1966) was a British painter and co-founder of the 1960s' British Pop art movement of which she was the only acknowledged female member. Boty's paintings and collages often demonstrate a joy in self-assured ...
,
Frank Bowling
Sir Richard Sheridan Patrick Michael Aloysius Franklin Bowling (born 26 February 1934, Bartica, British Guiana), known as Frank Bowling, is a Guyana-born British artist. His paintings relate to Abstract expressionism, Color Field painting, and ...
,
Józef Czapski
Józef Czapski (3 April 1896 – 12 January 1993) was a Polish artist, author, and critic, as well as an officer of the Polish Army. As a painter, he is notable for his membership in the Kapist movement, which was heavily influenced by Céza ...
, Stanisław Frenkiel,
Bridget Riley
Bridget Louise Riley (born 24 April 1931) is an English painter known for her op art paintings. She lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France.
Early life and education
Riley was born on 24 April 1931 in Norwood, Londo ...
and
Aubrey Williams.
Concern for the maintenance of Polish language and culture in the UK was entrusted to the "Polska Macierz Szkolna" – Polish Educational Society, a voluntary organization that operated a network of Saturday schools. Parishes also organized an active Polish scout movement (
ZHP pgk). Polish religious orders founded boarding schools in England. In 1947 The
Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth
The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth are a Roman Catholic religious institute that was founded in Rome in 1875 by Blessed Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd (Franciszka Siedliska). The Sisters of the Holy Family are an apostolic, international ...
started a school for girls, The
Holy Family of Nazareth Convent School in
Pitsford
Pitsford is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom. According to 2001 census, the parish's population was 636 people, increasing to 671 at the 2011 census.
The village's name means 'Peoht's ford'.
Pitsford ...
near Northampton. Displaced members of the Polish
Marian Fathers
The Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary ( la, Congregatio Clericorum Marianorum ab Immaculata Conceptionis Beatissimae Virginis Mariae) is a Catholic male clerical religious congregation fou ...
opened a first school for boys in
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthsh ...
. Then with financial help from the Polish diaspora, they acquired a vacant historic property on the river Thames outside
Henley-on-Thames which became "Divine Mercy College" and a heritage museum at
Fawley Court
Fawley Court is a country house, with large mixed-use grounds standing on the west bank of the River Thames at Fawley in the English county of Buckinghamshire. Its former deer park extended east into the Henley Park area of Henley-on-Thames, Ox ...
,
a Grade I listed building, which functioned as a college from 1953 to 1986 and as a museum and retreat and conference centre until about 2010, when it was sold off by the Polish order amid controversy. In the grounds of the property is a church building and
Columbarium
A columbarium (; pl. columbaria) is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns, holding cremated remains of the deceased.
The term can also mean the nesting boxes of pigeons. The term comes from the Latin "''colu ...
(1071) commissioned by Prince
Radziwill in memory of his mother, Anna
Lubomirska. The prince was himself laid to rest there in 1976. It is Grade II listed by
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
.
![Posk](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Posk.JPG)
As a result of the 1939 invasion of Poland, the entirety of Polish universities and academic research fell into disarray. Although very reduced tertiary teaching continued underground, many academics perished in
Katyn and in
Concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
or shared the fate of the civilian population. Those who were abroad at the outbreak of war or who managed to escape set about salvaging their heritage outside Poland. During the war several British universities hosted Polish academic departments to enable Polish students to complete their interrupted studies: thus
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
offered veterinary science in Polish and
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
hosted a Polish faculty of law, and
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
had a Polish Medical Faculty, whose alumni fortuitously joined the roll out of the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
in the UK. These arrangements came to an end in the late 1940s and to cater for many demobilized service personnel wishing to resume their studies or research, "
PUNO
Puno (Aymara and qu, Punu) is a city in southeastern Peru, located on the shore of Lake Titicaca. It is the capital city of the Puno Region and the Puno Province with a population of approximately 140,839 (2015 estimate). The city was establish ...
" (Polski Uniwersytet na Obczyznie) – The Polish University Abroad was founded in 1949, offering humanities subjects in Polish. It exists to this day with a London base at the Polish Social and Cultural Centre in Hammersmith and has opened departments in other European countries.
During the Cold War, Poles assembled twice in the UK to mark historic national events. The first was in 1966 the
Millennium
A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...
of Poland's baptism as a Christian nation, when among other festivities, a
Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
was celebrated in London's
White City Stadium
White City Stadium was a stadium located in White City, London, England. Built for the 1908 Summer Olympics, it hosted the finish of the first modern marathon and other sports like swimming, speedway, boxing, show jumping, athletics, stock ...
, filled to its 45,000 capacity. The second gathering was during the visit by the Polish pontiff,
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
, to the United Kingdom in 1982. While the Pope visited nine British cities and was welcomed by two million British Roman Catholics and others, a Mass specifically for 20,000 Polish faithful was held at the
Crystal Palace stadium in London on Sunday 30 May.
Symbolism of political governance
In December 1990, when
Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the President of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democrati ...
became the first non-Communist president of Poland since the war, the ceremonial insignia of the Polish Republic, including the original text of the
Polish 1935 constitution
The April Constitution of Poland ( pl, Ustawa konstytucyjna 23 IV 1935 or ''Konstytucja kwietniowa'') was the general law passed by the act of the Polish Sejm on 23 April 1935. It introduced in the Second Polish Republic a presidential syste ...
were handed over to him in Warsaw by the last "President" of the London-based government-in-exile,
Ryszard Kaczorowski. This act symbolized the legitimate transfer of independent Poland's seals of office and put an end to the political opposition that, for half a century, had both dogged and been the bedrock of the Polish diaspora in the United Kingdom.
[ Peter D. Stachura, Editor ''The Poles in Britain 1940–2000'', Frank Cass, 2004, , Paperback First Edition, p. 45.][ Stachura, Peter D. Ed. ''The Poles in Britain 1940–2000'', Frank Cass, 2004, , Paperback First Edition, p. 8.] Arguably a majority of Polish people had fought hard to combat communism, and for their right to democratic liberties. While an increasingly frail and diminishing group upheld the existence of the "Zamek" – "Citadel" shorthand for the
Polish National Council as the "virtual opposition" to the communist regime in Poland it held little sway with the Polish diaspora in the UK. Instead, London came to be seen as an important centre for fostering business and cultural relations with contemporary Poland.
Economic activity
For the duration of the
Cold War and the
Iron Curtain, Poles in the UK were engaged in a massive effort of helping economically their relatives and friends in Poland. Initially they sent food parcels and medicines as Poland recovered from the ravages of war then the assistance changed to money transfers, sometimes from their own meagre pensions, in the belief that they were still better off living in freedom. ''Tazab'' and ''Haskoba'' were the earliest UK-based parcel operations, while
Grabowski was a mail order pharmacy. When Poland raised import tariffs, they turned their focus in the mid 1950s to travel, like ''Fregata Travel'', the latter being a brand that had migrated to London from pre-war
Lwow
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...
. With banking agreements with Poland in place, the travel companies acted as transfer bureaux via the Polish bank
PKO.
The relaxation of travel restrictions to and from Poland after October 1956 saw a steady increase in Polish exchanges with the United Kingdom in the 1950s. In the 1960s a purge of communist party members and intellectuals of Jewish descent led to a further influx of Poles into the UK. Only with the accession of
Edward Gierek
Edward Gierek (; 6 January 1913 – 29 July 2001) was a Polish Communist politician and ''de facto'' leader of Poland between 1970 and 1980. Gierek replaced Władysław Gomułka as First Secretary of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (P ...
in 1970 as First Secretary of the
Polish Workers' Party
The Polish Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 194 ...
(PZPR), who himself had spent time as a migrant in France and Belgium, did it become possible for Poles to leave their country with relative ease.
The ''Polish Trustee Association'', founded by the Ex-Combatants (SPK), handled legacies left by Polish
DPs for their kin in Poland.
Remembrance
![London MMB 68 Polish War Memorial](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/London_MMB_68_Polish_War_Memorial.jpg)
Polish servicemen who died in the
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
or subsequently, found their final resting places mainly in six cemeteries across the United Kingdom:
Newark-on-Trent
Newark-on-Trent or Newark () is a market town and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district in Nottinghamshire, England. It is on the River Trent, and was historically a major inland port. The A1 road (Great Britain), A1 road bypasses th ...
,
Blackpool,
Brookwood Cemetery
Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regi ...
, Surrey,
Yatesbury
Yatesbury is a village in Wiltshire, England. It is next to Cherhill, north of the A4 road between Calne and Marlborough.
Yatesbury was an ancient parish and in the 19th century became a civil parish, which was absorbed by Cherhill parish in ...
in Wiltshire,
Grangemouth in Scotland, and
Wrexham
Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...
in Wales. Then, as the first generation of émigrés settled in various urban areas, often clustered around Polish clubs and churches, their graves and memorials began to appear in nearby existing cemeteries. Thus in London and its environs there were Polish burials especially in
Brompton (Central London),
Gunnersbury
Gunnersbury is an area of West London, England.
Toponymy
The name "Gunnersbury" means "Manor house of a woman called Gunnhildr", and is from an old Scandinavian personal name + Middle English -''bury'', manor or manor house.
Development
Gunne ...
,
Mortlake
Mortlake is a suburban district of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the south bank of the River Thames between Kew and Barnes. Historically it was part of Surrey and until 1965 was in the Municipal Borough of Barnes. For many cen ...
,
Norwood and
Putney Vale
Putney () is a district of southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
History
Putney is an ancient paris ...
cemeteries.
The
Polish War Memorial
The Polish Air Force Memorial (informally Polish War Memorial) is a war memorial in West London, England in memory of airmen from Poland who served in the Royal Air Force as part of the Polish contribution to World War II. Over 18,000 men and wo ...
, in a prominent position close to
RAF Northolt
("Ready to carry or to fight")
, pushpin_map = Greater London
, pushpin_label = RAF Northolt
, pushpin_map_caption = Shown within Greater London
, coordinates =
, type = Royal Air Force station
, code =
, site_area =
, height =
, owner ...
West of London, commemorating the Polish airmen who fought for Great Britain, was erected in two stages. It was initially unveiled in 1948 with the names of 1,243 flyers. In time, a further 659 names were identified and were added during a refurbishment of the monument carried out in 1994-6 funded by a public appeal. It was ceremonially re-opened. In 2015 a memorial garden was added to mark the 75th anniversary of the battle. The monument is
Grade II listed by
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
.
Franciszek Kornicki (1916–2017) is the last Polish fighter pilot to die. His funeral was held in November 2017.
![Pomnik katynski londyn](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Pomnik_katynski_londyn.JPG)
By contrast, the wish of the British Polish community to honour its 28,000 fellow countrymen, many of them close relatives, who fell victim of the Katyn massacre with a memorial met with sustained obstruction from the British authorities. This, it appears, was owing to the effective diplomatic pressure exerted by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
on Anglo-Soviet relations at the height of the
Cold War. Despite public funds having been raised, the project was delayed for many years. A measure of ''
détente
Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce ...
'' in
East-West relations
East West (or East and West) may refer to:
*East–West dichotomy, the contrast between Eastern and Western society or culture
Arts and entertainment
Books, journals and magazines
*''East, West'', an anthology of short stories written by Salma ...
in the mid 1970s, allowed a monument to be installed inside
Gunnersbury Cemetery. There was no official British attendance at the unveiling in September 1976. Those British officials who came, did so in their private capacity.
There are now over a dozen Polish war memorials across the UK, including in the RAF church,
St Clement Danes in the
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
and
St Andrew Bobola Church, Hammersmith.
21st-century economic immigration
![Pierogarnia - Manningham Lane - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Pierogarnia_-_Manningham_Lane_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1652341.jpg)
During the twentieth century, world events meant that in Europe, London eclipsed
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
as the traditional destination of choice for Polish
dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th ...
s. The establishment of Polish communities across the UK after the Second World War along with supporting institutions cemented links between the UK-Polish community and relatives and friends in Poland. This encouraged a steady flow of migrants from Poland to the UK, which accelerated after the
fall of Communism
The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...
in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, Poles used the eased travel restrictions to move to the UK and work, sometimes in the
grey economy.
Poland joined the EU on 1 May 2004 and Poles, as EU citizens, gained the right to freedom of movement and establishment across the European Union. Most member states, though, had negotiated temporary restrictions to their labour markets, up to a maximum of seven years, for citizens from new member states. To the contrary, the UK (as Sweden too) granted immediate full access to its labour market to citizens from the new member states.
over entrants from these accession states,
Seven-year temporary restrictions on benefits that EU citizens including Poles could claim, covered by the
Worker Registration Scheme, ended in 2011.
The Home Office publishes quarterly statistics on applications to the Worker Registration Scheme. Figures published in August 2007 indicated that some 656,395 persons were accepted on to the scheme between 1 May 2004 and 30 June 2007, of whom 430,395 were Polish nationals. However, as the scheme is voluntary, offers no financial incentive and is not enforced; immigrants are free to choose whether or not to participate. They may work legally in the UK provided they have a Polish identity card or passport and a UK
National Insurance
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their fami ...
number. This has led to some estimates of Polish nationals in the UK being much higher. Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes quarterly reports containing data on National Insurance number (NINo) allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK. The number of Polish nationals’ NINo registrations peaked between 2006 and 2008. In the financial year 2006/07 there were 220,430 Polish nationals receiving NINo registration (31% of all NINo registrations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK) and in 2007/2008- 210,660 (29% of all registrations to adult overseas nationals). The number of NINo registrations granted to Polish citizens has been in significant decline since 2016 referendum. In the year to June 2016 Polish born adults received 105 thousand NINo's, 18% less than in the year before a 13% share of all NINo registrations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK. The latest statistical data covering the year to the end of March 2020 shows a further decrease in Polish NINo registrations. During this period 38 thousand Polish citizens received NINos - 13% less than in the previous year and a significantly smaller share of all adult overseas registrations compared with previous years - 5%.
The Polish magazine ''
Polityka
''Polityka'' (, ''Politics'') is a centre-left weekly news magazine in Poland. With a circulation of 200,050 (as of April 2011), it was the country's biggest selling weekly, ahead of ''Newsweek''s Polish edition, '' Newsweek Polska'', and '' W ...
'' launched a 'Stay With Us' scheme offering young academics a £5,000 bonus to encourage them to live and work at home in Poland. Additionally on 20 October 2007, a campaign was launched by the
British Polish Chamber of Commerce
In June 1989, as Poland turned away from communism, a group of British-Polish students and graduates, Polish expats and British businessmen, established ‘Interes’, an organisation promoting business, trade and investment between Britain and P ...
called "Wracaj do Polski" ('Come Back to Poland') which encouraged Poles living and working in the UK to return home.
By the end of 2007, stronger economic growth in Poland than in the UK, falling unemployment and the rising strength of the Polish
złoty had reduced the economic incentive for Poles to migrate to the UK. Poland was one of the few countries to not be badly affected by the
2008 economic downturn.
Labour shortages in Polish cities and in sectors such as construction, IT and financial services have also played a part in stemming the flow of Poles to the UK.
According to the August 2007 Accession Monitoring Report, fewer Poles migrated in the first half of 2007 than in the same period in 2006.
Demographics
Population size
The
2001 UK Census
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194.
The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...
recorded 60,711 Polish-born UK residents;
60,680 of these resided in Great Britain (not including
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
), compared to 73,951 in 1991.
Following immigration after Poland's accession to the EU, the
Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament.
Overview
The ONS is responsible for t ...
estimated 832,000 Polish-born residents in the UK in 2018, making Poles the largest overseas-born group, having outgrown the Indian-born population. The
2011 UK Census recorded 579,121 Polish-born residing in England, 18,023 in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
,
55,231 in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
,
and 19,658 in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
.
Unofficial estimates have put the number of Poles living in the UK higher, at up to one million.
The
Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament.
Overview
The ONS is responsible for t ...
estimates that the Polish-born population of the UK was 691,000 in 2020.
Geographic distribution
![Polish speakers in England and Wales](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Polish_speakers_in_England_and_Wales.svg)
According to the
2011 UK Census in England and Wales, there are 0.5 million residents whose main language is Polish; which amounts to 1% of the whole population aged three years and over. In London, there were 147,816 Polish speakers. The main concentration of Polish people in London is in
Ealing, in West London (21,507; 6.4% of all usual residents). Elsewhere in the capital, the biggest Polish communities are in the outer Boroughs of:
Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) is a London borough in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of ...
,
Brent,
Hounslow
Hounslow () is a large suburban district of West London, west-southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hounslow, and is identified in the London Plan as one of the 12 metropolitan centres in ...
,
Waltham Forest,
Barnet. Outside London, the largest Polish communities are in:
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
,
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
,
Slough (8,341; 5.9%),
Luton
Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable a ...
,
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
,
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
,
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...
, Manchester,
Leicester,
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
and the
Borough of Boston
The Borough of Boston is a local government district with borough status in Lincolnshire, England. Its council is based in the town of Boston. The borough covers a wider area that includes villages such as Wyberton, Butterwick, Kirton-in-Holl ...
in Lincolnshire (2.975; 4.6%).
Scotland has seen a significant influx of Polish immigrants. Estimates of the number of Poles living in Scotland in 2007 ranged from 40,000 (
General Register Office for Scotland
The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) ( gd, Oifis Choitcheann a' Chlàraidh na h-Alba) was a non-ministerial directorate of the Scottish Government that administered the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adopti ...
) to 50,000 (the Polish Council). The 2011 UK Census recorded 11,651 people in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
born in Poland, which is 2.4% of the city's population – a higher proportion than anywhere else in Scotland apart from Aberdeen, where 2.7% were born in Poland.
In Northern Ireland, the number of people reporting in the 2011 census that they were born in Poland was 19,658,
[ and the number stating that they spoke Polish as a first language was 17,700. Despite a ]Police Service of Northern Ireland
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI; ga, Seirbhís Póilíneachta Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ')
is the police force that serves Northern Ireland. It is the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) after it was reform ...
(PSNI) recruitment drive in November 2006 that attracted 968 applications from Poles, with language exams being held both in Northern Ireland and in Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, , none had entered the PSNI's ranks. The first Polish national to join the PSNI started working in August 2010.
Employment and social activities
In London and various other major cities, Poles are employed across virtually all sectors from care work, construction, hospitality sector to education, NHS, banking and financial services. There is a significant group of people involved in the arts, in writing, journalism and photography. In rural areas of low-population density, such as East Anglia and the East Midlands; Polish workers tend to be employed in agriculture and light industry.
The Polish Social and Cultural Association in Hammersmith which houses a number of organisations, an exhibition space, a theatre and several restaurants, is a popular venue. The Federation of Poles in Great Britain
The Federation of Poles in Great Britain ( pl, Zjednoczenie Polskie w Wielkiej Brytanii) is a voluntary umbrella organisation established to promote the interests of Poles in the United Kingdom and to promote the history and culture of Poland amon ...
(ZPWB) which was set up to promote the interests of Poles in Great Britain acts as an umbrella for more than seventy organisations throughout the UK. Both these institutions also aim to promote awareness of Polish history
The history of Poland spans over a thousand years, from medieval tribes, Christianization and monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political l ...
and culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...
among British people
British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs m ...
.
Since Poland's accession to the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
in 2004, Polish delicatessens, with regular deliveries of fresh produce from Poland, are an increasingly familiar feature along British streets and foodstuffs from Poland are supplied to most of the supermarket chains. New publications in Polish have joined the pre-existing titles, including several free magazines carrying news and features and filled with advertising are booming. A local newspaper in Blackpool is one of a handful of British newspapers to have its own online edition in Polish called ''Witryna Polska''.
Social questions
Education
Many Poles who have migrated to the UK since the enlargement of the EU have brought children with them. The young families have created some pressure on schools and English-language support services. Despite language difficulties, research shows these pupils perform well in British schools, and the presence of Polish pupils in schools has appeared to improve the performance of other pupils in those schools. The Coalition Government planned to abolish exams in Polish by 2018, among other languages, at GCSE and A-Level, on the grounds that they were no longer cost-effective due to "falling popularity"; but these plans were scrapped in the wake of protests in Parliament and a petition co-ordinated by the Polish Educational Society.
Integration and intermarriage
Polish newcomers to the United Kingdom follow previous patterns of ethnic integration, depending on where they can afford to live, on their educational and employment status, and on the presence of other ethnicities. In 2012 most of the 21,000 children born to Polish mothers had Polish fathers; the remainder had fathers of other backgrounds. In 2014 there were 16,656 children born with Polish mothers and fathers from European backgrounds (Other white and white British).[https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/.../livebirths/datasets/parentscountryofbirth/...xls ] Some 702 children were recorded as born to Polish mothers and fathers from African backgrounds, and 749 children born to Polish mothers and fathers from Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds.
Polonophobia in Britain
As noted, there was an increase in Polish workers in Britain in the early twenty-first century. There were incidents of resistance or ethnic discrimination. In 2007, Polish people living in Britain reported 42 "racially motivated violent attacks" against them, compared with 28 in 2004. On 11 July 2012, the Polish Association of Northern Ireland called for action after Polish flags were burned on Eleventh Night
In Northern Ireland, the Eleventh Night or 11th Night, also known as "bonfire night", is the night before the Twelfth of July, an Ulster Protestant celebration. On this night, large towering bonfires are lit in Protestant loyalist neighbourhood ...
bonfires in several locations across Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
.
On 26 July 2008, ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' published a comment piece by restaurant reviewer Giles Coren
Giles Robin Patrick Coren (born 29 July 1969) is a British columnist, food writer, and television and radio presenter. He has been a restaurant critic for ''The Times'' newspaper since 2002, and was named Food and Drink Writer of the Year at the ...
, who expressed negative sentiments towards Poles, in part due to his belief that Christian Poles had forced his Jewish ancestors to flee Poland because of anti-Semitic attacks on them after the Holocaust and the Second World War. Coren used the term "Polack
In the contemporary English language, the noun ''Polack'' ( and ) is a derogatory, mainly North American, reference to a person of Polish descent or from Poland. It is an anglicisation of the Polish masculine noun ''Polak'', which denotes a per ...
" to refer to the Polish diaspora in Britain, arguing that "if England is not the land of milk and honey it appeared to them three or four years ago, then, frankly, they can clear off out of it".
The far-right British National Party
The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...
(BNP) have expressed anti-Polish sentiments in their political campaigns, and campaigned for a ban on all Polish migrant workers to Britain. The party used an image of a Second World War Spitfire fighter plane, under the slogan "Battle for Britain", during the party's 2009 European Elections campaign. But the photograph was of a Spitfire belonging to the Polish No.303 Squadron of the Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
. John Hemming, Liberal Democrat MP for Yardley, Birmingham, ridiculed the BNP for accidentally using an image of Polish aeroplanes in their campaign: " ey have a policy to send Polish people back to Poland – yet they are fronting their latest campaign using this plane."
In January 2014, a Polish man, whose helmet was emblazoned with the flag of Poland, claimed he was attacked by a group of fifteen men outside a pub in Dagenham, London. The victim blamed speeches of then-Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
David Cameron for causing the attack. During the same month in Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
, there were seven attacks on Polish homes within ten days; stones and bricks were thrown at the windows.
Notable persons
The following persons are notable Poles who have lived in the United Kingdom, or notable Britons of Polish descent.
Science and technology
* Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz – Polish-British developmental biologist. Professor of Mammalian Development and Stem Cell Biology at Cambridge University.
*Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman (; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. He emigrat ...
(1925–2017) – sociologist
* Sir Leszek Borysiewicz (born 1951) – physician, immunologist and scientific administrator, the 345th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (in office since 2010).
*Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He was known to friends and professional colleagues alike by the nickname Bruno. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to sc ...
(1908–1974) – Polish-Jewish British mathematician, biologist, historian of science, theatre author, poet and inventor. Presenter and writer of the 1973 BBC television documentary series, ''The Ascent of Man
''The Ascent of Man'' is a 13-part British documentary television series produced by the BBC and Time-Life Films first broadcast in 1973. It was written and presented by British mathematician and historian of science Jacob Bronowski, who ...
''
*Stefan Buczacki
Stefan T. Buczacki (born 16 October 1945) is a British horticulturist, botanist, biographer, novelist and broadcaster.
Early life
Buczacki grew up in Duffield, Derbyshire, where he was educated at The Ecclesbourne School. He gained a first-clas ...
(born 1945) – botanist, horticulturalist, broadcaster and writer
*Maria Czaplicka
Maria Antonina Czaplicka (25 October 1884 – 27 May 1921), also referred to as Marya Antonina Czaplicka and Marie Antoinette Czaplicka, was a Polish cultural anthropologist who is best known for her ethnography of Siberian shamanism. Czaplicka ...
(1884–1921) – cultural anthropologist who is best known for her ethnography of Siberian shamanism.
* Helen Czerski, (born 1978) – physicist and oceanographer
*Eva Frommer
Eva Ann Frommer (6 September 1927 – 8 August 2004) was a German-born British consultant child psychiatrist, working at St Thomas' Hospital in South London. Her specialism was to apply the arts and eurythmy to the treatment of pre-school chil ...
(1927–2004) – pioneering child psychiatrist
* Waclaw Korabiewicz (1903–1994) – physician, ethnographer, prolific writer and administrator
* Józef Kosacki (1909–1990) – inventor of the Polish mine detector, first used in Second Battle of El Alamein.
*Margaret Lowenfeld
Margaret Frances Jane Lowenfeld (4 February 1890 – 2 February 1973) was a British pioneer of child psychology and play therapy, a medical researcher in paediatric medicine, and an author of several publications and academic papers on the study ...
(1890–1973) – physician and pioneer of Play therapy
Play therapy refers to a range of methods of capitalising on children's natural urge to explore and harnessing it to meet and respond to the developmental and later also their mental health needs. It is also used for forensic or psychological as ...
[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – Margaret Lowenfeld]
Retrieved, 20 June 2009
* Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942) – one of the most important 20th-century anthropologists
*Mark Miodownik
Mark Andrew Miodownik () is a British materials scientist, engineer, broadcaster and writer at University College London. Previously, he was the head of the Materials Research Group at King's College London, and a co-founder of Materials Lib ...
(born 1969) – materials scientist, engineer and populariser of science
* Sir Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) – physicist, participant in the Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
and Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats. It was f ...
, Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
1995
*Tomasz Schafernaker
Tomasz Schafernaker (born 8 January 1979) is a Polish-British meteorologist who currently works for BBC Weather.
Early life
Tomasz Schafernaker was born on 8 January 1979 in Gdańsk, Poland, and attended school both in his native Poland and i ...
– meteorologist and broadcaster
*Hanna Segal
Hanna Segal (born Hanna Poznańska; 20 August 1918 – 5 July 2011) was a British psychoanalyst of Polish descent and a follower of Melanie Klein. She was president of the British Psychoanalytical Society, vice-president of the International Psyc ...
– Kleinian psychoanalyst
* Karol Sikora (born 1948) – oncologist
*Krystyna Skarbek
Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, (, ; 1 May 1908 – 15 June 1952), also known as Christine Granville, was a Polish agent of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. She became celebrated for her daring exploi ...
(1908–1952) – SOE agent
* Władysław Świątecki (1895–1944) – invented a bomb-release system, the most successful to be used in the Second World War.
*Paweł Strzelecki
Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki (;By Australian English speakers: pɔːl strʌzlɛki (paul struhzLECKi). 20 July 17976 October 1873), also known as Paul Edmund de Strzelecki and Sir Paul Strzelecki, was a Polish explorer, geologist, humanitarian ...
(1797–1873) – explorer and geologist who in 1845 also became a British subject.
* Zbigniew Szydlo, (born 1949) – chemist and specialist in alchemy
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...
* Stefan Tyszkiewicz (1894–1976) – automotive pioneer, engineer and inventor
* Halszka Wasilewska (1899–1961) – London-born military officer who developed women's army training in Interbellum Poland
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First Worl ...
*Helena Rosa Wright
Helena Rosa Wright (17 September 1887 – 21 March 1982) was an English pioneer and influential figure in birth control and family planning both in Britain and internationally. With her husband she undertook missionary work in China for five yea ...
(1887–1982) – physician, missionary and pioneer of Contraception
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
* John Zarnecki (born 1949) - astronomer, past President of the Royal Astronomical Society
(Whatever shines should be observed)
, predecessor =
, successor =
, formation =
, founder =
, extinction =
, merger =
, merged =
, type = NG ...
Written word
* Sebastian Baczkiewicz (born 1962) - playwright
* Janina Bauman (1926–2009) – journalist and writer
*Sophie Brzeska
Sophie Suzanne Brzeska or Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (born Zofia Brzeska; 8 June 1872 – 17 March 1925) was a Polish writer and artistic muse most noted for being the companion of the artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.
Brzeska and Gaudier met in 1909 i ...
(1873–1925) – writer and muse of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (né Gaudier; 4 October 1891 – 5 June 1915) was a French artist and sculptor who developed a rough-hewn, primitive style of direct carving.
Biography
Henri Gaudier was born in Saint-Jean-de-Braye near Orléans. In 1910, ...
* Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) – novelist
*Marian Hemar
Marian Hemar (1901–1972), born Marian Hescheles (other pen names: Jan Mariański, and Marian Wallenrod), was a Polish poet, journalist, playwright, comedy writer, and songwriter. Hemar himself stated that before the outbreak of World War II he ...
– songwriter, poet and comedy sketch writer
*Eva Hoffman
Eva Hoffman (born Ewa Wydra on 1 July 1945) is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning writer and academic.
Early life and education
Eva Hoffman was born in Kraków, Poland, shortly after World War II. Her parents, Boris and Maria Wydra, surv ...
(born 1945) – writer and psychotherapist
* Józef Jarzębowski (1897–1964) – educationalist, antiquarian and priest, founder of ''Divine Mercy College'', Fawley Court
Fawley Court is a country house, with large mixed-use grounds standing on the west bank of the River Thames at Fawley in the English county of Buckinghamshire. Its former deer park extended east into the Henley Park area of Henley-on-Thames, Ox ...
*Michał Kalecki
Michał Kalecki (; 22 June 1899 – 18 April 1970) was a Polish Marxian economist. Over the course of his life, Kalecki worked at the London School of Economics, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and Warsaw School of Economics ...
(1899-1970) - economist and mathematician, 1970 Nobel Prize nominee
*Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski (; ; 23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his three-volume history, '' Main Currents of Marxism'' (1976 ...
(1927–2009) – philosopher and historian of ideas, senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, the first winner of the John W. Kluge Prize
The John W. Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanity is awarded since 2003 for lifetime achievement in the humanities and social sciences to celebrate the importance of the Intellectual Arts for the public interest.
Overview
The prize is awarded by ...
for Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities
* Bernard Łubieński (1846–1933) – English-educated Redemptorist
The Redemptorists officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer ( la, links=no, Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptoris), abbreviated CSsR,is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men (priests and brother ...
priest, archivist, preacher and missionary, (''venerable
The Venerable (''venerabilis'' in Latin) is a style, a title, or an epithet which is used in some Western Christian churches, or it is a translation of similar terms for clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy and monastics in Buddhism.
Christianity
Cat ...
'' of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
)
*Jozef Mackiewicz
Jozef or Józef is a Dutch language, Dutch, Breton language, Breton, Polish language, Polish and Slovak language, Slovak version of masculine given name Joseph. A selection of people with that name follows. For a comprehensive list see and ..
* J ...
(1902–1985) – novelist, younger brother of Stanisław Mackiewicz
* Chris Maslanka (born 1954) – writer, broadcaster specialising in puzzles and problem-solving
* Juliusz Mieroszewski – publicist, translator of Orwell's 1984 into Polish
* Zdzisław Najder (born 1930) – Conrad scholar
*Beata Obertyńska
Beata Obertyńska, (pen name "Marta Rudzka"), born July 18, 1898, near Skole (in present-day Western Ukraine), died May 21, 1980 in London was a Polish writer and poet.
Life
Beata was one of the daughters of the ' Young Poland' poet Maryla Wolsk ...
(1898–1980) – poet and writer
*Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska
Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, ''née'' Kossak (24 November 1891 – 9 July 1945), was a prolific Polish poet known as the ''Polish Sappho'' and "queen of lyrical poetry" during Poland's interwar period. (1891–1945) – poet and dramatist[ Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska: Biography and ''A Woman of Wonder''](_blank)
, University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
.
* Zbigniew Pelczynski (1925-2021) – political scientist, fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, founder of School for Leaders in Poland
* Jerzy Peterkiewicz (1916–2007) – writer and academic
*Adam Pragier
Adam Szymon Pragier (12 December 1886 - 24 July 1976) was a Polish economist, Doctor of Jurisprudence professor at the Free Polish University, socialist activist, politician, member of the Polish Legions and writer. A minister of information ...
(1886-1976) - jurist, author, Minister of Information Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...
* Sir Leon Radzinowicz (1906–1999) – academic and criminologist
* Jozef Retinger (1888–1960) – writer, founder of the European Movement
The European Movement International is a lobbying association that coordinates the efforts of associations and national councils with the goal of promoting European integration, and disseminating information about it.
History
The origins of th ...
and of the Bilderberg Group
The Bilderberg meeting (also known as the Bilderberg Group) is an annual off-the-record conference established in 1954 to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. The group's agenda, originally to prevent another world war, is now defi ...
, friend of Conrad, political adviser, spy
*W. S. Lach-Szyrma
The Reverend Wladislaw Somerville Lach-Szyrma, M.A., F.R.H.S. (25 December 1841 – 25 June 1915) was a British curate, historian and science fiction writer. He is credited as one of the first science fiction writers to use the word "Martian ...
(1841–1915) – curate, historian, Science fiction writer and first to coin the word ''Martian
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s as the Moon was evidently lifeless. At the time, the pr ...
''
* Bolesław Taborski (1927–2010) – veteran of Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...
, poet, translator into English of John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
's dramatic works, literary critic, BBC Polish Section
The BBC Polish language, Polish Section ( pl, Sekcja polska BBC) was one of the foreign-language services of the BBC World Service. It existed between 1939 and 2005.
History
A decision to establish the BBC Polish Section was made on 3 September 19 ...
editor
*Adam Zamoyski
Adam Zamoyski (born 11 January 1949) is a British historian and author.
Personal life
Born in New York City in 1949, Adam Stefan Zamoyski was brought up in England and educated at St Philip's Preparatory School, The Queen's College, Oxford, ...
(born 1949) – historian, ecology campaigner
Visual arts
*Iwona Blazwick
Iwona Maria Blazwick OBE (born 14 October 1955) is a British art critic and lecturer, and has been Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London since 2001. She discovered Damien Hirst and staged his first solo show at a public London art ...
(born 1955) – gallery director and art critic
* Andrzej Ciechanowiecki (1924–2015) – art historian, antiquary, Jermyn Street
Jermyn Street is a one-way street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster in London, England. It is to the south of, parallel, and adjacent to Piccadilly. Jermyn Street is known as a street for gentlemen's-clothing retailers.
Hist ...
gallery owner and philanthropist
* Stanisław Frenkiel (1918-2001) - expressionist painter, art historian and academic teacher
* Henryk Gotlib (1890–1966) – painter
* Mateusz Grabowski (1904-1976) - pharmacist, owner of Grabowski Gallery
The Grabowski Gallery was an avant-garde art gallery opened in 1959 in London's Chelsea by Mateusz Grabowski, anticipating the Swinging Sixties. It hosted some of the earliest shows of the rising pop art movement and was the first venue in Lond ...
, patron and philanthropist who fostered and donated art to public collections
*Waldemar Januszczak
Waldemar Januszczak (born 12 January 1954) is an English art critic and television documentary producer and presenter. Formerly the art critic of ''The Guardian'', he took the same role at ''The Sunday Times'' in 1992, and has twice won the Cr ...
(born 1954) – architecture and art critic
* Stanislawa de Karlowska (1876–1952) – painter and member of the Camden Town Group
The Camden Town Group was a group of English Post-Impressionist artists founded in 1911 and active until 1913. They gathered frequently at the studio of painter Walter Sickert in the Camden Town area of London.
History
In 1908, critic Frank R ...
*Adam Kossowski
Adam Kossowski (5 December 1905 – 31 March 1986) was a Polish artist, born in Nowy Sącz, notable for his works for the Catholic Church in England, where he arrived in 1943 as a refugee from Soviet labour camps and was invited in 1944 to join ...
(1905–1986) – painter
* Stefan Knapp (1921-1996) - painter, sculptor and multi-media artist
* Andrzej Krauze
Andrzej Krauze (born 7 March 1947) is a Polish-born British cartoonist, illustrator, caricaturist, painter, poster designer and satirist noted for his allegorical, fabulous, symbolic and sometimes scary imagery, as well as his reliance on bl ...
(born 1947) – cartoonist, illustrator, painter and poster designer
* Mieczysław Lubelski (1886–1965) – sculptor, ceramicist, designer, author of Polish War Memorial
The Polish Air Force Memorial (informally Polish War Memorial) is a war memorial in West London, England in memory of airmen from Poland who served in the Royal Air Force as part of the Polish contribution to World War II. Over 18,000 men and wo ...
, RAF Northolt
("Ready to carry or to fight")
, pushpin_map = Greater London
, pushpin_label = RAF Northolt
, pushpin_map_caption = Shown within Greater London
, coordinates =
, type = Royal Air Force station
, code =
, site_area =
, height =
, owner ...
*Stanisław Julian Ostroróg
Count Stanisław Julian Ostroróg (1836– 31 May 1890) was an exiled Polish nobleman and Crimean War veteran. He later became known as an early professional portrait photographer who created photogravures, under the professional name of '' ...
(1834–90) – '' Photographer to the Queen''. (He and his son, ''below'', were both known as ''Walery''.) Sitters included Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
and Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
.
*Stanisław Julian Ignacy Ostroróg
Stanisław Julian Ignacy Ostroróg (also known as ''Walery'', ''Stanislas Waléry'', ''Lucien Waléry'', and ''Laryew'', born 12 September 1863 – 24 February 1929) was a Polish photographer active in London and Paris between 1890 and 1929. Aft ...
(1863–1935) – son of the above, also a portrait photographer. Sitters included Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
.
*Aniela Pawlikowska
Aniela Pawlikowska known as Lela Pawlikowska, (11 July 1901, Lwów - 23 December 1980, London) was a Polish artist, illustrator, and society portrait painter who came to prominence in the United Kingdom in the 1950s and '60s.
Life
Aniela P ...
(1901-1980) - artist, book illustrator and society painter in Britain
*Jan Pieńkowski
Jan Michał Pieńkowski (8 August 1936 – 19 February 2022) was a Polish-born British author of children's books—as illustrator, as writer, and as designer of movable books. He is best known for illustrating the ''Meg and Mog'' picture book ...
(born 1936) – children's book illustrator
*Janina Ramirez
Janina Sara Maria Ramirez (; ' Maleczek; born 7 July 1980), sometimes credited as Nina Ramirez, is a British art historian, cultural historian, and TV presenter. She specialises in interpreting symbols and examining works of art within their his ...
(born 1980) – art and cultural historian and TV presenter
*Jasia Reichardt
Jasia Reichardt (born 1933) is a British art critic, curator, art gallery director, teacher and prolific writer, specialist in the emergence of computer art. In 1968 she was curator of the landmark ''Cybernetic Serendipity'' exhibition at London's ...
(born 1933) - art curator, critic, gallery director and historian
*Franciszka Themerson
Franciszka Themerson (28 June 1907 - 29 June 1988) was a Polish, later British, painter, illustrator, filmmaker and stage designer.
Biography
Themerson was born in Warsaw in 1907, the daughter of the artist Jakub Weinles and pianist Łucja ( n ...
(1907-1988) - painter, film maker, book illustrator and stage designer
*Feliks Topolski
Feliks Topolski RA (14 August 1907 – 24 August 1989) was a Polish expressionist painter and draughtsman working primarily in the United Kingdom.
Biography
Feliks Topolski was born on 14 August 1907 in Warsaw, Poland. He studied in the Acade ...
(1907–1989) – draughtsman, cartoonist, illustrator and designer, expressionist painter
* Jerzy Zarnecki CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
, FBA, FSA(1915-2008) - Professor of the History of Art
* Marek Zulawski (1908–1985) – painter and art theorist
Music
*Irena Anders
Irena Renata Anders (12 May 1920 – 29 November 2010), born Iryna Renata Jarosiewicz (Yarosevych), was a Ukrainian-Polish stage actress and singer. During World War II she performed with Henryk Wars' troupe and later with the ''Polska Parad ...
(aka ''Renata Bogdańska'') – singer, actress, Poland's "answer to Vera Lynn
Dame Vera Margaret Lynn (; 20 March 191718 June 2020) was an English singer and entertainer whose musical recordings and performances were very popular during World War II. She is honorifically known as the " Forces' Sweetheart", having giv ...
", and wife of General Anders
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
*Mark Brzezicki
Mark Michael Brzezicki ( , ; born 21 June 1957) is an English musician, best known as the drummer for the Scottish rock band Big Country. He has also played with the Cult, Ultravox, From the Jam, Procol Harum, Rick Astley, the Crazy World of A ...
- drummer, longstanding member of Big Country
Big Country are a Scottish rock band formed in Dunfermline, Fife, in 1981.
The height of the band's popularity was in the early to mid 1980s, although it has retained a cult following for many years since. The band's music incorporated Scot ...
* Katy Carr – musician, songwriter and aviator
*Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...
– virtuoso pianist and composer a year before his death, toured England and Scotland in 1848, inspired by his Scottish pupil, Jane Stirling
Jean ("Jane") Wilhelmina Stirling (15 July 1804 – 6 February 1859) was a Scottish amateur pianist who is best known as a student and later friend of Frédéric Chopin, who dedicated Nocturnes, Op. 55 to her. She took him on a tour of England a ...
*Chris Dreja
Christopher Walenty Dreja (born 11 November 1945 in Surbiton, Surrey) is an English musician, best known as the rhythm guitarist and bassist for rock band the Yardbirds for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
Ea ...
– guitarist with The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds are an English rock band, formed in London in 1963. The band's core lineup featured vocalist and harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist and later bassist Chris Dreja and bassist/producer Paul Samwell ...
*Janick Gers
Janick Robert Gers (; born 27 January 1957) is an English musician who is best known as one of the three guitarists in heavy metal band Iron Maiden. He initially joined to replace Adrian Smith, but remained in the band after Smith rejoined. G ...
– guitarist in Iron Maiden
*Ida Haendel
Ida Haendel, (15 December 19281 July 2020) was a Polish-British-Canadian violinist. Haendel was a child prodigy, her career spanning over seven decades. She also became an influential teacher.
Early career
Born in 1928 to a Polish Jewish fami ...
(1928–2020) – virtuoso violinist awarded CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
*Josef Hassid
Josef Hassid ( pl, Józef Chasyd, links=no) (28 December 19237 November 1950) was a Polish violinist.
Childhood
Born on 28 December 1923 to Jewish parents in Suwałki, Poland, as Joseph or Józef Chasyd, he was the second youngest of four child ...
– violin prodigy who came to study in England
*J. J. Jeczalik
Jonathan Edward Stephen "J. J." Jeczalik () is an English electronic musician/record producer, co-founder of the electronic music group the Art of Noise. He taught Information technology, IT at Oxford High School, Oxford, Oxford High School unt ...
– musician
*Paul Kletzki
Paul Kletzki (born Paweł Klecki; 21 March 1900 – 5 March 1973) was a Polish conductor and composer.
Biography
Born in Łódź, Kletzki joined the Łódź Philharmonic at the age of fifteen as a violinist. After serving in the First World Wa ...
(1900–1973) – Polish-born international conductor associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is a music organisation based in Liverpool, England, that manages a professional symphony orchestra, a concert venue, and extensive programmes of learning through music. Its orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmon ...
* Alfred Orda – operatic baritone
*Andrzej Panufnik
Sir Andrzej Panufnik (24 September 1914 – 27 October 1991) was a Poles, Polish composer and conductor. He became established as one of the leading Polish composers, and as a conductor he was instrumental in the re-establishment of the Warsaw ...
– orchestral conductor and composer
*Roxanna Panufnik
Roxanna Panufnik (born 24 April 1968) is a British composer of Polish heritage. She is the daughter of the composer and conductor Sir Andrzej Panufnik and his second wife Camilla, née Jessel.
Panufnik was born in London. She attended Bedales ...
– composer daughter of Andrzej
* Marjan Rawicz – virtuoso pianist, half of the popular Piano duo, Rawicz and Landauer
Rawicz and Landauer were an immensely popular piano duo team that performed from 1932 to 1970. They were initially based in Vienna, Austria, but moved to the United Kingdom in the early part of their career. They were known for their arrangemen ...
*Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein ( pl, Artur Rubinstein; 28 January 188720 December 1982) was a Polish Americans, Polish-American pianist. (1887–1982) – pianist and honorary KBE
* Janek Schaefer – sound artist
*Halina Czerny-Stefańska
Halina Czerny-Stefańska ( xaˈlina t͡ʂɛrnɨ stɛˈfaj᷉ska31 December 19221 July 2001) was a Polish pianist.
Life
She studied piano under her father, Stanisław Szwarcenberg-Czerny, as well as with Alfred Cortot at the École Normale de ...
– pianist, juror of the Leeds International Piano Competition
The Leeds International Piano Competition, informally known as The Leeds and formerly the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, takes place every three years in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1961 by Marion, Countess ...
, emerged as the real pianist of the EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
Dinu Lipatti
Constantin "Dinu" Lipatti (; 2 December 1950) was a Romanian classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from effects related to Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy. He comp ...
recording mix-up
*Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his appeara ...
– orchestral conductor
* Maria Szymanowska – virtuoso pianist and composer, gave concerts in England in 1818
*André Tchaikowsky
André Tchaikowsky (also Andrzej Czajkowski; born Robert Andrzej Krauthammer; November 1, 1935June 26, 1982) was a Polish composer and pianist.
Life and career
Robert Andrzej Krauthammer was born in Warsaw in 1935 into a Jewish family. He had s ...
(1935–1982) – pianist, composer. He left his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
*Chris Urbanowicz
Editors are an English rock band, formed in 2002 in Birmingham. Previously known as Pilot, The Pride and Snowfield, the band currently consists of Tom Smith (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Russell Leetch (bass guitar, synthesiser, backing vocal ...
– guitar player in Editors
*Tracey Ullman
Tracey Ullman (born Trace Ullman, 30 December 1959) is a British-American actress, comedian, singer, writer, producer, and director. Her earliest mainstream appearances were on British television sketch comedy shows ''A Kick Up the Eighties'' (wi ...
– comedian, actor and singer
* Henryk Wieniawski – violinist and composer played with the Beethoven Quartet Society in London
Performing arts
* Kathryn Apanowicz – actor
* Jan Herman Cukiertort (1842–1888) – chess grandmaster
*Daniela Denby-Ashe
Daniela Jolanta Denby-Ashe (born 9 August 1978) is an English actress. She is best known for playing Sarah Hills on the soap opera ''EastEnders'', Margaret Hale on the period drama ''North and South'', and Janey Harper on the BBC sitcom ''My F ...
(born Pszkit) – actor
*Robert Donat
Friedrich Robert Donat (18 March 1905 – 9 June 1958) was an English actor. He is best remembered for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's '' The 39 Steps'' (1935) and ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' (1939), winning for the latter the Academy Award for ...
– actor
*Anulka Dziubinska
Anulka Maria Dziubinska (born 14 December 1950) is an English actress and model. She was featured as ''Playboy'' magazine's Playmate of the Month in May 1973.
After her Playmate appearance, Dziubinska became an actress of film and television, p ...
– actor, model
*Coky Giedroyc
Mary Rose Helen "Coky" Giedroyc (; born 6 February 1963) is an English director known for her work on ''Women Talking Dirty'', '' The Virgin Queen'', '' The Nativity'', and ''Penny Dreadful''.
Early life
Giedroyc was born in Kowloon on 6 Febru ...
– director
*Mel Giedroyc
Melanie Clare Sophie Giedroyc (; , born 5 June 1968) is a British actress, comedian and television presenter. With Sue Perkins, she has co-hosted series including ''Light Lunch'' for Channel 4, ''The Great British Bake Off'' for the BBC and cha ...
– actor, comedian, one half of 'Mel and Sue
Mel Giedroyc (born 5 June 1968) and Sue Perkins (born 22 September 1969), known collectively as Mel and Sue, are an English comedy double act. They are known for hosting the BAFTA Award-winning BBC One cookery series ''The Great British Bake ...
'
*Sir John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Briti ...
– actor, director
*Maina Gielgud
Maina Gielgud (born 14 January 1945) is a British former ballet dancer and a veteran ballet administrator. She was artistic director of The Australian Ballet from 1983 to 1996. She had a twenty-year career as a dancer in Europe and the United Ki ...
– ballet dancer
*Val Gielgud
Val Henry Gielgud (28 April 1900 – 30 November 1981) was an English actor, writer, director and Television presenter, broadcaster. He was a pioneer of radio drama for the BBC, and also directed the first ever drama to be produced in the newe ...
– pioneer of radio drama
*Stefan Golaszewski
Stefan Golaszewski (born November 1980) is a British writer, performer and director. He is part of the comedy troupe Cowards and is the writer and creator of BAFTA winning sitcoms ''Him & Her'' and '' Mum''.
Early life and education
Golaszews ...
– comedian
*Paul Heiney
Paul Heiney (born Paul Wisniewski; 20 April 1949) is a British radio broadcaster and television reporter most notable as a former presenter of ''That's Life!''.
Early life
He was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, the son of Norbert Wisniewski and Ev ...
(born Wisniewski) – son of a Polish serviceman) journalist, TV personality and farmer
* Stanislas Idzikowski (1894-1977) – Ballet dancer
A ballet dancer ( it, ballerina fem.; ''ballerino'' masc.) is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet; however, dancers have a strict hierarchy and strict gender roles. They rely on yea ...
, with Anna Pavlova
Anna Pavlovna Pavlova ( , rus, Анна Павловна Павлова ), born Anna Matveyevna Pavlova ( rus, Анна Матвеевна Павлова; – 23 January 1931), was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th ...
and the Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. A ...
and esteemed ballet master
*Marek Kanievska
Marek Kanievska (born 30 November 1952) is a British film director.
His films have won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Florence Film Festival.
His 2004 film ''A Different Loyalty'' was entered into the 26th Moscow International Film F ...
– director
* Mark Kielesz-Levine - Television Journalist and Presenter
*Richard Kwietniowski
Richard Kwietniowski (born 17 March 1957) is an English film director and screenwriter of Polish descent. During the 1980s he was a film lecturer at Bulmershe College of Higher Education (now Bulmershe Court in Reading, Berkshire. He has dir ...
– director, screenwriter
*Rula Lenska
Rula Lenska (born Róża Maria Leopoldyna Łubieńska, 30 September 1947) is a British actress. She mainly appears in British stage and television productions and is known in the United States for a series of television advertisements in the 19 ...
– actor
*Kasia Madera
Katarzyna "Kasia" Madera (born 4 October 1975) is a British journalist and television news presenter. She fronts mainly evening and overnight bulletins on BBC One, the BBC News Channel and BBC World News, presenting the ''Newsday'' strand on F ...
– newsreader
*Anna Ptaszynski
Anna Ptaszynski is a British podcaster, television host, and television writer. She is one of the four regular hosts of the podcast '' No Such Thing as a Fish'', together with Dan Schreiber, Andrew Hunter Murray, and James Harkin. She was also ...
– comedian, host of No Such Thing as a Fish
''No Such Thing as a Fish'' is a weekly British podcast series produced and presented by the researchers behind the BBC Two panel game ''QI''. In the podcast each of the researchers, collectively known as "The ''QI'' Elves", present their favour ...
education/comedy podcast
*Ida Schuster
Ida Schuster (28 September 1918 – 9 April 2020) was a Scottish theatre, radio and television actress, theatre director, and a leading figure in Glasgow's 20th-century Jewish theatre community.
Biography
One of nine children, her parents were ...
– actor
*Vladek Sheybal
Vladek Sheybal (born Władysław Rudolf Zbigniew Sheybal; 12 March 1923 – 16 October 1992) was a Poles, Polish character actor, singer and director of both television and Theatre director, stage productions. He was well known for his portrayal ...
(1923–1992) – film and TV actor and director
*Peter Serafinowicz
Peter Szymon Serafinowicz ( ; born 10 July 1972) is an English actor, comedian, director and screenwriter, best known for his roles as the title character in the 2016 live-action series of ''The Tick'', Pete in ''Shaun of the Dead'' (2004) and ...
– comedian
*Michael Winner
Robert Michael Winner (30 October 1935 – 21 January 2013) was a British filmmaker, writer, and media personality. He is known for directing numerous Action film, action, Thriller films, thriller, and black comedy films in the 1960s, 1970s and ...
(1935–2013) – son of a Polish mother, film director, producer, food critic
Politics
*Tomasz Arciszewski
Tomasz Stefan Arciszewski (; 4 November 1877 – 20 November 1955) was a Polish socialist politician, a member of the Polish Socialist Party and the 31st Prime Minister of Poland, 3rd Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile in London fro ...
– third Prime Minister of Polish government-in-exile and the last to have international recognition
*Adam Ciołkosz
Adam Ciołkosz (; January 5, 1901 – October 1, 1978) was a Polish scout, soldier, publicist and politician, who was one of the most important leaders of the Polish Socialist Party, both in the Second Polish Republic and in exile during and ...
– with wife, Lidia, leading light of the Polish Socialist Party
The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland.
It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' ...
for several decades in Poland and in UK exile
*Daniel Kawczynski
Daniel Robert Kawczynski ( pl, Kawczyński, ; born 24 January 1972) is a British Conservative Party politician.
Kawczynski has served as Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a parliamentary ...
– Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham
Shrewsbury and Atcham was a local government district with borough status in Shropshire, England, between 1974 and 2009.
Shrewsbury was the only town in the borough; Atcham, although itself only a village, was included in the name as a reflect ...
, came to the UK in 1978
* Stanisław Mackiewicz (1896–1966) (older brother of Jozef Mackiewicz
Jozef or Józef is a Dutch language, Dutch, Breton language, Breton, Polish language, Polish and Slovak language, Slovak version of masculine given name Joseph. A selection of people with that name follows. For a comprehensive list see and ..
* J ...
) – foremost political journalist who served as exiled Prime Minister (1955–56) before returning to Poland
*Stanislaw Mikolajczyk Stanislav and variants may refer to:
People
* Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.)
Places
* Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine
* Stanislaus County, C ...
– second Prime Minister of Polish government-in-exile
*David Miliband
David Wright Miliband (born 15 July 1965) is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Labour Party politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of P ...
– former Foreign Secretary
The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...
, whose mother was born in Poland
*Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband ...
– former leader of the Labour Party, whose mother was born in Poland[
*]Rosena Allin-Khan
Rosena Chantelle Allin-Khan (born 10 May 1978) is a British doctor and politician serving as Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health since 2020. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting since the 2016 ...
(born 1977) – medical practitioner and Labour Party MP for Tooting
Tooting is a district in South London, forming part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and partly in the London Borough of Merton. It is located south south-west of Charing Cross.
History
Tooting has been settled since pre- Saxon times ...
in London
*Walery Mroczkowski
Walery Karłowicz Mroczkowski (6 April 1840 – 1 October 1889) was a Polish insurgent in the 1863 January Uprising. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Prussian authorities. Upon release in 1865, he was sent into exile and travelled to Italy, ...
(1840–1889) – anarchist follower of Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary ...
*Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz
Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz ( , ; 6 February 1758 – 21 May 1841) was a Polish poet, playwright and statesman. He was a leading advocate for the Constitution of 3 May 1791.
Early life
Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz was born 6 February 1758 in Skoki, nea ...
– political theorist, diplomat, prolific writer
*Leon Walerian Ostroróg
Leon Walerian Ostroróg (1867 in Paris – 1932 in London), was an Islamic scholar, jurist, adviser to the Ottoman government and émigré in Istanbul. He was also a writer and translator.
Early life
Ostroróg was the third son of Count Stani ...
(1867–1932) – international jurist, specialising in Islamic Law
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the ...
, delegate to Paris Peace Conference, 1919
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
*Józef Piłsudski
Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Naczelnik państwa, Chief of State (1918–1922) and Marshal of Poland, First Marshal of Second Polish Republic, Poland (from 1920). He was ...
– statesman and marshal of Polish Armed Forces
The Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Siły Zbrojne Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, abbreviated ''SZ RP''; popularly called ''Wojsko Polskie'' in Poland, abbreviated ''WP''—roughly, the "Polish Military") are the national armed forces of ...
stayed in London as an independence activist early in his career
*Adam Pragier
Adam Szymon Pragier (12 December 1886 - 24 July 1976) was a Polish economist, Doctor of Jurisprudence professor at the Free Polish University, socialist activist, politician, member of the Polish Legions and writer. A minister of information ...
– leading socialist and political writer, Information minister in the Polish government-in-exile
* Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz – Polish Head of State-in-exile (President) 1939–1947
*Edward Bernard Raczyński
Count Edward Bernard Raczyński (December 19, 1891 – July 30, 1993) was a Polish diplomat, writer, politician, President of Poland- in-exile (between 1979 and 1986).
He was the longest living (101), and oldest serving Polish President (f ...
– aristocrat, diplomat, writer, politician and President of Poland in exile (between 1979 and 1986)
* Jozef Retinger (1888-1960) – Chief political adviser to the Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...
, co-founder of the Bilderberg Group
The Bilderberg meeting (also known as the Bilderberg Group) is an annual off-the-record conference established in 1954 to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. The group's agenda, originally to prevent another world war, is now defi ...
and of the European Movement
The European Movement International is a lobbying association that coordinates the efforts of associations and national councils with the goal of promoting European integration, and disseminating information about it.
History
The origins of the ...
*Jacek Rostowski
Jan Anthony Vincent-Rostowski, also known as Jacek Rostowski (; born 30 April 1951, London), is a Polish-British economist and politician who served as Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland.
He was a candidate ...
– economist and politician who served as Minister of Finance
A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation.
A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...
and Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland
Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland is the deputy of the Prime Minister of Poland and member of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Poland. They can also be one of the Ministers of the Republic of Poland. The Constitution of ...
* Wladyslaw Sikorski – first Prime Minister of Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...
who died in mysterious circumstances in an air crash off Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
*Radosław Sikorski
Radosław Tomasz "Radek" Sikorski (; born 23 February 1963) is a Polish politician and journalist who is a Member of the European Parliament. He was Marshal of the Sejm from 2014 to 2015 and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Donald Tusk's cabinet b ...
(born 1963) – temporary UK citizen, Polish minister of Foreign Affairs
*Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski
Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski (; 9 June 1885, Gąbin – 31 August 1962 London) was a Polish physician,Waclaw Jedrzejewicz ''Piłsudski: A Life for Poland'' Hippocrene, 1982 Page 246 general, freemason and politician who served as Minister of I ...
– physician, Divisional general
Divisional general is a general officer rank who commands an army division. The rank originates from the French (Revolutionary) System, and is used by a number of countries. The rank is above a brigade general, and normally below an army corps ...
and last Prime Minister of the Second Republic of Poland
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First World ...
*Edward Szczepanik
Edward Franciszek Szczepanik (; 22 August 1915 – 11 October 2005) was a Poles, Polish economist and the last Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile.
Biography
Szczepanik was born on 21 A ...
(1915–2005) – economist and final prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile
*Walery Antoni Wróblewski
Walery Antoni Wróblewski ( be, Валерый Антоні Урублеўскі, translit=Valiery Antoni Urublieuski; also used. 27 December 1836 – 5 August 1908) was a Belarusian-French revolutionary, politician, general of Paris Commune a ...
(1836–1908) – politician, January Uprising
The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at ...
commander and Communard
The Communards () were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
After the suppression of the Commune by the French Army in May 1871, 43,000 Communards ...
*Władysław Zamoyski
Count Władysław Zamoyski (1853–1924) was a French-born Polish nobleman ( szlachcic), diplomat and heir of Kórnik, Głuchów, Janusz, Babin and Bargów (estates in the Grand Duchy of Poznań). Having acquired estates on the Polish ...
(1803–1868) – Czartoryski's diplomat in London and general in the Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
* Szmul Zygielbojm – Jewish-Polish socialist politician, Bund leader, and member of the National Council of the Polish Government in Exile. He committed suicide to protest the indifference of the Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
governments in the face of the Holocaust.
Business
* Jack Cohen (1898–1979) – founder of Tesco
Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...
, was the son of Polish Jewish immigrants.
* Mateusz Bronisław Grabowski (1904–1976) – pharmacist from Wilno
Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...
, who became a philanthropist to the arts and academic research
* Nicola Horlick (born 1960) – investment fund manager dubbed 'Superwoman', is half Polish.
* Henry Lowenfeld
Henry Lowenfeld in Polish, ''Henryk Loewenfeld'', (1 September 1859 - 4 November 1931) was a Polish-born British entrepreneur and theatrical impresario. He founded the Kops Brewery, the UK's first UK brewer of non-alcoholic beer, and built Lo ...
(1859–1931) – entrepreneur and theatrical impresario who introduced non-alcoholic beer to Fulham[Cathy Urwin, 'Lowenfeld, Margaret Frances Jane (1890–1973)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 200]
accessed 4 Sept 2015
/ref>
* Michael Marks
Michael Marks ( yi, מיכאל מארקס Polish: ''Michał Marks''; 1859? – 31 December 1907) was a businessman and entrepreneur, who with Thomas Spencer co-founded the British retail chain Marks & Spencer.
Biography
Marks was born into a ...
(Michał Marks) (c. 1859–1907) – one of two co-founders of the retail chain, Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...
* Peter Rachman
Perec "Peter" Rachman (16 August 1919 – 29 November 1962) was a Polish-born landlord who operated in Notting Hill, London, England in the 1950s and early 1960s. He became notorious for his exploitation of his tenants, with the word "Rachmanism" ...
(1919–1962) – notorious landlord whose malpractice gained an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
* John J. Studzinski
John Joseph Paul Studzinski, CBE (born March 19, 1956) is an American-British investment banker and philanthropist. Since September 2018 he has been Managing Director and Vice Chairman of the global investment-management firm PIMCO.
Prior to j ...
(born 1956) – American-British banker and philanthropist of Polish descent
Sport
* Paweł Abbott – former Poland under-21 international footballer, born and raised in York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
*Konrad Bartelski
Konrad Bartelski (born 27 May 1954) is a former British alpine ski racer who produced the then best result by a Briton on the Alpine Skiing World Cup circuit in 1981 by coming within 0.11 seconds of winning a World Cup downhill race at Val Gar ...
– Alpine ski racer
*Michael Bisping
Michael Gavin Joseph Bisping (; born 28 February 1979) is an English actor, sports analyst, commentator and retired mixed martial artist, who competed in the Middleweight and Light Heavyweight division of the UFC. A professional competitor ...
– mixed martial artist
*Matty Cash
Matthew Stuart Cash (born 7 August 1997) is a professional footballer who plays as a right-back for club Aston Villa and the Poland national team.
Cash started his career at Wycombe Wanderers and later the FAB Academy before he signed his fi ...
– Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
international footballer
*Andy Drzewiecki
Andy Drzewiecki (born Andrzej Drzewiecki 9 November 1947) is a former athlete, weightlifter and strongman from England. He won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in 1978 in the heavyweight class of the weightlifting. He also ...
– former weightlifter
*Carl Froch
Carl Martin Froch, (born 2 July 1977) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 2002 to 2014, and has since worked as a boxing analyst and commentator. He held multiple super-middleweight world championships, including the W ...
– professional boxer and two-time former WBC Super Middleweight Champion
* Lisa Dobriskey – British middle distance athlete
*Mickey Duff
Mickey Duff (7 June 1929 – 22 March 2014), was a Polish-born British boxer, matchmaker, manager and promoter.
Early life
Duff was born Monek Prager to a Jewish family in Tarnów, Poland on 7 June 1929. His father, a rabbi, helped the family ...
– Polish-born boxer and promoter
*Robert Grabarz
Robert Karl Grabarz (born 3 October 1987) is a retired British high jumper. Active during the 2010s, with his greatest success coming in two periods between 2012 and 2017. He was the 2012 European champion, the 2012 Diamond League high jump cha ...
– high-jumper
*Phil Jagielka
Philip Nikodem Jagielka ( or ; born 17 August 1982) is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for club Stoke City.
Jagielka started his career with Sheffield United in 2000, where he played mainly as a central midfiel ...
– England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
international footballer
*Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
– former England international footballer
*Lukas Jutkiewicz
Lukas Isaac Paul Jutkiewicz (born 28 March 1989) is an English professional footballer who plays as a striker for club Birmingham City. He previously played for Swindon Town, Everton, Plymouth Argyle, Huddersfield Town, Motherwell, Coventr ...
– footballer
*Paul Konchesky
Paul Martyn Konchesky (born 15 May 1981) is an English Association football, football coach and former professional player who currently manages West Ham United W.F.C., West Ham United Women of the FA WSL.
During a 21-year playing career, Konch ...
– former England international footballer
*Craig Kopczak
Craig Kopczak (born 20 December 1986) is a Wales international rugby league footballer who plays as a for Featherstone Rovers in the Betfred Championship.
He previously played for the Bradford Bulls in the Super League, and on loan from Brad ...
– rugby league player
*Dick Krzywicki
Dick Krzywicki (born Ryszard Lech Krzywicki; 2 February 1947 in Penley, Flintshire) is a Welsh former professional footballer and Wales international. He was born to Polish parents.
During his career he played for West Bromwich Albion, Huddersf ...
– former Wales international footballer
* Anthony Malarczyk – former cyclist
* Eddie Niedzwiecki – former Wales international footballer
* Mikołaj Olędzki – England international rugby league player
* Anton Otulakowski – former footballer
*Kris Radlinski
Kristian John Radlinski MBE (born 9 April 1976) is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played mainly as a . He played his entire professional career for his hometown club, Wigan Warriors, making over 300 appearances betwe ...
– former Wigan Warriors and Great Britain rugby league player
*Kevin Rutkiewicz
Kevin Rutkiewicz (born 10 May 1980) is a Scottish professional football player and coach, who is the current manager of Lowland League side East Kilbride. He was formally the manager of Scottish League Two club Stirling Albion. Ruthkiewicz pla ...
– footballer
*Kevin Spiolek
Kevin Spiolek (born 5 May 1962 in Cambridge) is a retired English professional darts player who played during the 1980s and 1990s. He made a brief return to form in 2006, when qualifying to play in the PDC World Darts Championship.
Career
His ...
– former darts player
*Alex Szostak
Alex Szostak (born 4 April 1986) is a former Scotland international rugby league footballer who played as a forward for the Sheffield Eagles in the RFL Championship and Workington Town in Kingstone Press League 1.
Background
Szostak was born ...
– rugby league player
*James Tarkowski
James Alan Tarkowski (born 19 November 1992) is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for club Everton.
Tarkowski began his professional career at Oldham Athletic of League One, where he made 89 appearances across all ...
– footballer
*Daniel Topolski
Daniel "Dan" Topolski (4 June 1945 – 21 February 2015) was a British author, rower, rowing coach and commentator on BBC television. He studied at the University of Oxford where he represented the Blue boat twice, in 1967 and 1968. In 1977, he w ...
– Oxford University rowing coach and TV pundit
*Wojciech Szczęsny
Wojciech Tomasz Szczęsny (; born 18 April 1990) is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for club Juventus and the Poland national team.
After starting his club career at Legia Warsaw, Szczęsny signed for Arsenal in Jan ...
– former goal-keeper for Arsenal F.C.
Scottish connection
*Catherine Czerkawska
Catherine Lucy Czerkawska, (born 3 December 1950) is a Scottish-based novelist and playwright. She has written many plays for the stage and for BBC Radio 4 and has published numerous novels and short stories. ''Wormwood'' – about the Chernoby ...
(born 1950) – poet, novelist, playwright
*Anna Dominiczak
Dame Anna Felicja Dominiczak Order of the British Empire, DBE Royal College of Physicians, FRCP Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE American Heart Association, FAHA Academy of Medical Sciences, FMedSci (born 26 August 1954) is a Polish-born British ...
DBE FRCP FRSE FAHA FMedSci - professor of Medicine
*James Gimzewski
James Kazimierz Gimzewski FRS FREng FInstP is a Scottish physicist of Polish descent who pioneered research on electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules and light emission using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM).James K. Gimzewski ...
– professor of chemistry, UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
*Janusz Jankowski
Janusz Jankowski is a doctor, educationalist and scientist of Scottish Polish origin He is an expert in Social and Healthcare Policy, Academic Management and Global Research and Education Networks He was formerly in previous senior manageme ...
– physician, scientist and academic administrator
*Christopher Kasparek
Christopher Kasparek (born 1945) is a Scottish-born writer of Polish descent who has translated works by numerous authors, including Ignacy Krasicki, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski, and Władysław K ...
– linguist and translator of Polish literature into English; to him is owed access to the remarkable Polish 1791 Constitution
*Mark Lazarowicz
Mark Lazarowicz ( ; born Marek Lazarowicz; 8 August 1953) is a British Labour Co-operative politician and lawyer who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh North and Leith from 2001 to 2015.
Early life
Lazarowicz was born in Romfor ...
– Labour and Co-operative
Labour and Co-operative Party (often abbreviated Labour Co-op; cy, Llafur a'r Blaid Gydweithredol) is a description used by candidates in United Kingdom elections who stand on behalf of both the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party.
Candidat ...
MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, whose father was Polish
*Gerald Lepkowski
Gerald Lepkowski is a British-Australian television and stage actor, who has had guest roles in Australian and British productions, before landing the lead role in drama series ''Dirt Game'' in Australia in 2009.
Early life
Born in the Sighthi ...
– actor, his father was Polish.
*Denis MacShane
Denis MacShane (born Josef Denis Matyjaszek; 21 May 1948) is a British former politician, author and commentator who served as Minister of State for Europe from 2002 to 2005. He joined the Labour Party in 1970 and has held most party offices. ...
(''né'' Matyjaszek) – former Minister for Europe
Minister may refer to:
* Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric
** Minister (Catholic Church)
* Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department)
** Minister without portfolio, a member of governme ...
, whose father was Polish
*Stanisław Maczek
Lieutenant General Stanisław Maczek (; 31 March 1892 – 11 December 1994) was a Polish tank commander of World War II, whose division was instrumental in the Allied liberation of France, closing the Falaise pocket, resulting in the destructio ...
(1892–1994) – tank commander, much-decorated lieutenant-general
*Marianna Palka
Marianna Bronislawa Barbara Palka (born 7 September 1981) is a Scottish actress, producer, director, and writer. She is the writer, director and star of the film '' Good Dick'', which screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
Early life and edu ...
– screenwriter
*Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski (born 1 March 1943) is a Canadian American architect, professor and writer. He is currently the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor Emeritus of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania.
Early life
Rybczynski was born in Ed ...
(born 1943) – Canadian architect
*Charles Edward Stuart
Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart (20 December 1720 – 30 January 1788) was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, grandson of James II and VII, and the Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland and ...
– "Bonny Prince Charlie", Jacobite pretender
The Jacobite succession is the line through which Jacobitism, Jacobites believed that the crowns of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland should have descended, applying primogeniture, since t ...
to thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland (half-Polish great-grandson of Polish King John III Sobieski
John III Sobieski ( pl, Jan III Sobieski; lt, Jonas III Sobieskis; la, Ioannes III Sobiscius; 17 August 1629 – 17 June 1696) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1674 until his death in 1696.
Born into Polish nobility, Sobie ...
)
* Richard Wawro – landscape painter
See also
* Poland–United Kingdom relations
British–Polish relations are the bilateral relations between the countries of United Kingdom and Poland. Exchanges between the two countries date back to medieval times, when Britain and Poland, then one of Europe's largest countries, were linke ...
* Great Polish Map of Scotland
The ''Great Polish Map of Scotland'' is a large (50 m x 40 m) three-dimensional, outdoor concrete scale model of Scotland, located in the grounds of the Blackbarony, Barony Castle Hotel, outside the village of Eddleston near Peebles in t ...
* Polish diaspora
The Polish diaspora comprises Poles and people of Polish heritage or origin who live outside Poland. The Polish diaspora is also known in modern Polish as ''Polonia'', the name for Poland in Latin and many Romance languages.
There are roughly 20,0 ...
* Scottish migration to Poland, 15th–18th centuries
* Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum
The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum ( pl, Instytut Polski i Muzeum im. Gen. Sikorskiego), known as Sikorski Institute, named after General Władysław Sikorski, is a leading London-based museum and archive for research into Poland during W ...
* '' World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West''
* Lithuanians in the United Kingdom
Lithuanians in the United Kingdom include individuals born in Lithuania who have migrated to the UK, among them Lithuanian citizens of Russian descent, as well as their British-born descendants. The 2011 UK Census recorded 95,730 Lithuanian-bor ...
References
Further reading
* Keith Sword Collection: Polish Migration Project at UCL, http://www.ssees.ucl.ac.uk/archives/swo.html
*''A Remarkable School in Exile 1941–1951'', Veritas Foundation Publication,
* S.Barnes, ''A Long Way From Home'', Staffordshire University 2003
*Brin Best & Maria Helena Zukowska, ''Poles in the UK: A Story of Friendship and Cooperation'', The British Polonia Foundation, 2016 [Free eBook PDF download fro
www.polesintheuk.net
*Kathy Burrell, ''Polish Migration to the UK in the 'New' European Union'', Ashgate 2009,
*Dr Diana M Henderson(Editor), ''The Lion and The Eagle'', Cualann Press .
*Robert Gretzyngier ''Poles in Defence of Britain'', Grub 2001,
*Michael Hope, ''The Abandoned Legion'', Veritas Foundation Publication .
*Michael Hope, ''Polish deportees in the Soviet Union'', Veritas Foundation Publication,
*W. Jedrzejewicz, ''Poland in the British Parliament 1939–1945'', White Eagle Printing
*G. Kay & R.Negus, ''Polish Exile Mail in Great Britain 1939–1949'', J. Barefoot,
*Ignacy Matuszewski, ''Did Britain Guarantee Poland's frontiers?'', Polish Bookshop
*Ignacy Matuszewski, ''Great Britain's Obligations Towards Poland'', National Committee of Americans, 1945
*Wiktor Moszczynski, ''Hello, I'm Your Polish Neighbour: All about Poles in West London'', AuthorHouse, 2010, ,
*Robert Ostrycharz,''Polish War Graves in Scotland A Testament to the Past'', .
*Prazmowska, Anita, ''Britain and Poland 1939–1943'', Cambridge University Press,
* Tim Smith & Michelle Winslow, ''Keeping the Faith The Polish Community in Britain'', Bradford Heritage,
*Peter Stachura (Editor), ''The Poles in Britain 1940–2000'', Frank Cass .
*R. Umiastowski, ''Poland, Russia and Great Britain 1941–1945'', Hollis & Carter 1946
*Ian Valentine, ''Station 43 Audley End House and SOE's Polish section'', Sutton 2004,
*Various, ''Intelligence co-operation between Poland and Great Britain during World War II'', Vallentine Mitchell 2005,
*Jonathan Walker, ''Poland Alone'', History Press 2008,
Memoirs and fiction
*Waydenfeld, Stefan. (1999) ''The Ice Road – An Epic Journey from Stalinist Labour Camps to Freedom''. London: Mainstream Publishing . Republished (2010) by Aquila Polonica, .
*Michał Giedroyć, ''Crater's Edge: A Family's Epic Journey Through Wartime Russia'', Bene Factum Publishing Ltd (1 May 2010)
*Matthew Kelly, ''Finding Poland'', Jonathan Cape Ltd (4 Mar 2010)
*Michael Moran, ''A Country in the Moon: Travels in Search of the Heart of Poland'', Granta Books; Reprint edition (2 Mar 2009)
*Joanna Czechowska, ''The Black Madonna of Derby'', Silkmill Press 2008
*Andrew Tarnowski, ''The Last Mazurka: A Tale of War, Passion and Loss'', Aurum Press Ltd (9 May 2006)
*Kasimir Czerniak, Gabi Czerniak, William Czerniak-Jones, ''The Wisdom of Uncle Kasimir'', Bloomsbuy 2006
*Annette Kobak, ''Joe's War – My Father Decoded: A Daughter's Search for Her Father's War'', 2004
*Dr John Geller, ''Through Darkness To Dawn'', Veritas (1 Jan 1989)
*Denis Hills Denis Cecil Hills (8 November 1913 – 26 April 2004) was a British author, teacher, traveller and adventurer. He came to international prominence in 1975 while he was living in Uganda and was sentenced to death for espionage and sedition follow ...
, ''Return to Poland'', The Bodley Head Ltd; First Edition (28 Jan 1988)
* Slavomir Rawicz, ''The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom'', Robinson Publishing (26 April 2007)
Academic papers
*Małgorzata Irek,
New Wave, Old Ways? Post-accession Migration from Poland Seen from the Perspective of the Social Sciences
', Studia Sociologica IV (2012), vol. 2, pp. 21–30
*Michał P. Garapich,
Between Cooperation and Hostility – Constructions of Ethnicity and Social Class among Polish Migrants in London
', Studia Sociologica IV (2012), vol. 2, pp. 31–45
* Małgorzata Krywult-Albańska,
Profil demograficzny polskich imigrantów poakcesyjnych w Wielkiej Brytanii
', Studia Sociologica IV (2012), vol. 2, pp. 72–80
External links
British Library Polish collections
British Polish Chamber of Commerce
Federation of Poles in Great Britain
Polish Heritage Society in the United Kingdom
Jagiellonian University Polish Research Centre in London
Polish Embassy in the UK, London
POSK Polish Social and Cultural Association
Information about researching Polish ancestry
issued by Suffolk County Council
Suffolk County Council is the administrative authority for the county of Suffolk, England. It is run by 75 elected county councillors representing 63 divisions. It is a member of the East of England Local Government Association.
History
Establ ...
, updated September 2011
{{Use dmy dates, date=December 2017
Immigration to the United Kingdom by country of origin
Poland–United Kingdom relations
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...