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This paper was presented as part of the panel entitled Changing Cultures: Arts and culture as agends and means of change in migration socities (panel #166). Chaired by Jens Schneider, this third session of the panel aimed to analyse collaborative projects between research, arts and culture and their impact.

Several of our members took part in the 18th IMISCOE Annual conference in July 2021. This year the conference theme was Crossing borders, connecting cultures. This was the second year the conference was hosted online by the University of Luxembourg. In 2020, IMISCOE’s annual conference was hosted with the support of IMISCOE, The University of Luxembourg and The Open University.

Discover the herstories of migrant businesswomen in 1911 London. This walk traces the presence of migrant women who ran their own business in 1911. The walk is about 5.5 km/1.5 hr

Women who ran groceries and other food sales shops were much more likely to be married. Often, the occupation of their husbands was a grocer as well, suggesting a de facto partnership. However, there were substantial numbers of female grocers married to butchers, coal merchants and other food sales occupations.

Lodging house keeper tended to be older than dressmakers. The key requirement was some business capital in the form of a house, which was often only achieved at middle age groups. Renting out rooms provided a vital form of entrepreneurial income for women who otherwise might have struggled to support themselves and their families through waged labour.

Dressmaking stood out as a trade that allowed women to set up their own business from a young age, even compared to other parts of the clothes-making sector.

Of the migrant business women identified in our study, a third were single and never married and another third were married and lived with their husbands. Amongst the remaining one third, majority of the women were widowed, and a smaller group were women who were married but with absent spouses.

The census is a snapshot of a moment in time. Our data counts migrant women who self-reported as operating a business on 2 April 1911, regardless of how small this business was, its longevity, or success. Our data includes many women who people may not immediately think of as running their own business, such as foreign language teachers, artists, and masseuses. This post follows from our earlier disucssion examining the definitions which aided our search for migrant business women in the 1911 census.

Women business owners have largely remained invisible in discussion of entrepreneurship during Edwardian England. This is because of two reasons: the location of the businesses, and feminisation of skills Over 75% of the women entrepreneurs ran their business from home.

Non-British empire migrants lived almost exclusively in large towns, especially in London. In each census year, 44 per cent to 48 per cent of the non-British Empire migrants lived in London. In London itself, migrant communities were concentrated in the East End, with smaller communities in Westminster, Marylebone, Hampstead and St Pancras.

In 1911, the migrant population had a higher rate of business proprietorship than the English- and Welsh-born population. Migrant women made an important contribution to the economy by providing both goods and services, and employment. Many of their businesses were small and in areas of the economy, such as dressmaking or food preparation and retail, often considered by historians to be less important than industrial production.

We found over 3,000 women in London born outside the UK in the 1911 census who ran their own business. Around a third of them employed others in their business, the other women ran their business on their own. 

This first post serves to introduce the project, it’s aims, and its forthcoming outputs. This project brings together the work of Dr Carry van Lieshout on women entrepreneurs in census, and work of Dr Gunjan Sondhi on gender and migration. The aim of the project is to make visible the stories of migrant women entrepreneurs drawing from 1911 UK Census. It also offers a view into the contemporary landscape of migrantwomen entrepreneurs.