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Aliens Order 1920
Restrictive order requiring 'alien' immigrants to register in the United Kingdom
About
The Aliens Order 1920 was an amendment to the Aliens Restriction Act of the previous year. Brought out in the context of widespread unemployment after the First World War, it required all aliens seeking employment or residence to register with the police. Failure to do so would result in deportation. Further, under the Order, the Home Secretary retained the power to deport any alien whose presence was considered detrimental to the public good. Constitutionally, South Asians were not ‘aliens’ but rather citizens of the British empire. In spite of this, however, many lascars were caught up in this legislation. They were not generally issued with passports so could not prove their status as British citizens and their exemption from the Order. Hence, many were subject to harassment and denied employment.
Dias-Abey, Manoj, 'The Aliens Order 1920, the "Work Permit" and the Making of the National Labour Market', in Bridget Anderson (ed.) Rethinking Migration: Challenging Borders, Citizenship and Race (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2025), pp. 112–29
Sherwood, Marika, ‘Race, Nationality and Employment among Lascar Seamen, 1660–1945’, New Community 17.2 (January 1991), pp. 234–5
Tabili, Laura, ‘We Ask for British Justice’: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
L/E/7/1390, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
L/E/9/953, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
L/PJ/12/234, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
HO 45, National Archives, Kew, UK
HO 213, National Archives, Kew, UK
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© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
