The core subject of this project is Polish immigration to post-war Britain, providing an account of the Polish community’s rehabilitation in exile and the British government’s post-1946 creation of a model migrant settlement policy, born of the 1947 Polish Resettlement Bill and subsequent legislation. 

         The project will explain how the Polish Resettlement Camps (265 former military camps all over Britain) were the first step towards integrating some 250,000 Polish troops and their dependants into British society eventually to form a vibrant immigrant community, though around half later opted to emigrate or were repatriated. 

By the end of 1949, 156,000 former soldiers and their dependents had settled in Britain forming a significant part of the Polish community as it exists today, and of the wider Polish diaspora.

For many years the Polish Resettlement Camps were seen as remote places packed with poor-quality dwellings occupied by more than one family per hut. 

However, for the second, much younger generation, the camps would always remain in their memory as happy places, full of freedom. 

This paper will reassert the ‘everydayness’ of nation and migration, stressing how legacies of migration are embedded in daily life. Focusing on characteristic themes of migration such as national and cultural identity, the relationship between immigrant populations and their host societies (intercultural interactions), and community life, it will explain the origins and all aspects of Polish settlement in the UK after World War II.

The study will also explore the question, national loyalty, the cultivation of national traditions, and the survival of “Polishness” particularly within the second and the third generation of settlers. 

The project highlights the importance of language in shaping national consciousness, with specific reference to the case of migrant Poles, and it will seek to provide a better understanding of the growing interest in roots and identity-formation among descendants of the original settlers. It will examine the “national character” of Polish émigré children as influenced by their home, the Polish schools and Polish organizations formed within this expatriate community. 

Little Polands’ (Male Polski), as the Polish Resettlement Camps (PRCs) came to be known, could be seen throughout the land. This phenomenon flourished right through the post-war years and to this day the remains of many of the PRCs can still be explored. 

In due course, the Poles emerged as dedicated contributors to the rebuilt British economy. The Polish minority constitutes one of the largest ethnic groups in the UK today.