It was the golden age of maritime travel, an era when immigrants ventured across the world in the hope of a better life and expats returned home after British colonies achieved independence.
It was the golden age of maritime travel, an era when immigrants ventured across the world in the hope of a better life and expats returned home after British colonies achieved independence.
Between 1878 and 1960 more than 18 million men, women and children boarded ships in countries outside Europe and arrived in UK ports such as Glasgow, Liverpool and Southampton.
Now a list of all those passengers has been launched online, giving an insight into the social history of the UK and the way in which the country was transformed into a multicultural society.
It features the ancestors of many well-known faces, such as Diane Abbott MP, the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons, and TV presenter Ainsley Harriott. It also cites the names of celebrity tourists, including Sir Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor and Roger Moore.
Tony Robinson, launching the database in London yesterday, said: "It is in a nutshell the story of immigration, the story of colony and the story of the transformation of this country into what it is today.
"It is also the story of those journeys by tourists, by business people and by expats. The first-class lists look like something out of an Agatha Christie. They are absolutely wonderful."
The UK Incoming Passenger Lists, which were put online in partnership with the National Archives, track travellers' journeys until 1960, when the development of commercial flights made aircraft the preferred mode of international transport.
They reveal the industrial past of many of Britain's major cities, including Glasgow, which was home to the fourth busiest port, with 875,000 arrivals into the River Clyde documented online.
The most popular port of arrival was Liverpool, with more than 5.7 million people entering the UK via the Mersey. Southampton was second with 5.1 million and London was also a popular entry point, with 3.1 million arrivals.
The records, which cite a passenger's name, age and occupation, port of departure and origin and intended address in the UK, document the different waves of immigration into the country.
In 1948, 500 people from Jamaica, who arrived in the UK on the Empire Windrush, became the first Afro- Caribbean immigrants. Passengers who migrated from the West Indies include Chester Leroy Harriott, father of Ainsley, who travelled from Jamaica aged 17, and Ms Abbott's mother, who sailed into Bristol from Jamaica in 1950.
More than 60,000 immigrants arrived from India between 1947 and 1955, while the Chinese population in Britain also rose significantly during the 1950s.
Included in the list of business travellers and tourists is Glasgow tea merchant Sir Thomas Lipton, who, at the age of 75, arrived into Southampton from New York on May 15, 1926.
Ronald Reagan's arrival at Liverpool, in November 1948, is revealed. He is listed as staying at the Savoy Hotel in London with his occupation simply as "actor".
Peter Roff, 57, from Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, showed the entry for his father, John, who arrived in 1919 aged three from Buenos Aires, Argentina. "I knew that my father had come to the UK at a fairly young age but I had never been able to establish when," he said. "It is a bit like finding a long-lost member of the family."
