It was only a coincidence that the NHS and the Empire Windrush (carrying 492 migrants from Britain’s West Indian colonies) arrived together. As the ship’s passengers disembarked in June 1948, frantic preparations were already underway for the July ‘Appointed Day’ when the nation’s new National Health Service would first open its doors. Yet the relationship between immigration and the NHS rapidly attained—and has enduringly retained—notable political and cultural significance. Both the Appointed Day and the post-war arrival of colonial and Commonwealth immigrants heralded transformative change. ... More

It was only a coincidence that the NHS and the Empire Windrush (carrying 492 migrants from Britain’s West Indian colonies) arrived together. As the ship’s passengers disembarked in June 1948, frantic preparations were already underway for the July ‘Appointed Day’ when the nation’s new National Health Service would first open its doors. Yet the relationship between immigration and the NHS rapidly attained—and has enduringly retained—notable political and cultural significance. Both the Appointed Day and the post-war arrival of colonial and Commonwealth immigrants heralded transformative change. Together, they reshaped daily life in Britain and notions of ‘Britishness’ alike. The reciprocal impacts of post-war immigration and medicine in post-war Britain, however, have yet to be explored. This book casts new light on a period only now attracting significant historical interest. It draws attention to the importance—but also the limitations—of medical knowledge, approaches and professionals in mediating post-war British responses to race, ethnicity, and the emergence of new and distinctive ethnic communities. By presenting a wealth of newly available or previously ignored archival evidence, it interrogates and re-balances the political history of Britain’s response to New Commonwealth immigration. The book uses a set of linked case-studies to map the persistence of ‘race’ in British culture and medicine alike; the limits of belonging in a multi-ethnic welfare state; and the emergence of new and resolutely ‘unimagined’ communities of patients, researchers, clinicians, policy-makers and citizens within the medical state and its global contact zones.