Act (UK Public General)
Passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

1905

The Aliens Act

Key features of the 1905 Aliens Act:
• It gave the Secretary of State (now Home Secretary) responsibility for all matters of immigration and nationality.
• Entry to the UK became discretionary with the option of permission to land being withheld if the immigrant was judged to be undesirable for such reasons as no means to decently support himself and family, was a lunatic or idiot, or diseased and so on.
• Exceptions were made for asylum seekers including those without the means of supporting themselves and family.
• It provided for the expulsion of ‘undesirable’ immigrants and the prosecution of masters of ‘immigrant ships’ (ships with more than 20 alien steerage passengers).
• Immigrants required to have a minimum of £5 on arrival

• The Act marked the end of automatic right of entry of immigrants to the UK .
• The first piece of immigration legislation in 20th century Britain and the first to define some groups of migrants as ‘undesirable’ making entry to the UK discretionary rather than automatic.
• It replaced the Registration of Aliens Act of 1836.
• Aimed at controlling immigration following fears of degenerating health and housing conditions in London’s East End which was being attributed to the large numbers of Russian and Polish Jews who had arrived in the East End after fleeing persecution in Tsarist Russia.
• The number of alien immigrants fell from approximately 8,700 in 1906 to 1,400 in 1910.
• The Act paved the way for the 1914 and 1919 Aliens Restriction Acts which added new restrictions on the civil and employment rights of aliens already resident in Britain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_Act_1905
http://www.movinghere.org.uk/search/catalogue.asp?RecordID=77093&ResourceTypeID=2&sequence=6
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/O/origination/immigration.html
http://www.bopcris.ac.uk/bopcris/digbi

Liz Peadon

Cambridgeshire Race Equality and Diversity Service,

Researcher