THE arrival of the merchant vessel SS Empire Windrush, later known as the HMT Empire Windrush, at Tilbury Docks in 1948 will always be an important moment in British History.

Sailing into the Port of Tilbury, Tilbury Docks, East of London on June 22 1948, the first group of post war Caribbean migrants entered the United Kingdom from Kingston, Jamaica following Allied victory that ended World War Two.

Unable to recover fully from the impact of war, Britain was reliant on the arrival of immigrants to help rebuild the country. The British parliament therefore passed the Nationality Act of 1948 granting Commonwealth citizens the right of entry to England as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies.

Leaving behind a life in Jamaica that had been ravished by hurricanes, 492 Caribbean migrants, many of whom who had worked as RAF servicemen and woman throughout the war, paid £28 10s to board the old troop carrier with the hope of work and a better quality of life in the ‘Mother Country’.

Aboard the monumental journey that sparked the start of the postwar immigration boom was Trinidadian calypso great Lord Kitchener who enthusiastically wrote the song ‘London is the place for me.’

Other passengers were calypso musicians Lord Beginner, Lord Woodbine and Mona Baptiste, alongside 60 Polish women displaced during the Second World War.

Several stowaways had also managed to escape discovery. One, Averill Wauchope, was a “25-year-old seamstress” who was discovered seven days out of Kingston.

Though the journey to Tilbury Docks was long and tiresome, passengers occupied themselves by making friends and handcrafting colourful suits and ties.