From Sweden To Britain
Why did so many Swedes and other Scandinavians immigrate to Britain in the 19th century?
On the 1901 census of England and Wales, 5,623 people are recorded as having been born in Sweden. A significant number of them are seamen, recorded on vessels or onshore. The areas with the highest Swedish populations were London,
Durham, Lancashire and Northumberland. Some
Swedish men may have worked on land, in ports or mines (or other heavy industries), while others earned their living on boats, and women such as Clara found work as domestic servants. As Swedish sailors travelled between ports, some will have left local women pregnant, although any foreign paternity may have been hidden within a marriage to a local man.
Another reason why Swedes arrived in north-east England was that they were on their way to the USA, but ran out of money and could afford to go no further, or decided to stay for other reasons. The Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported on 18 April 1870: “Two years ago, I predicted that the Tyne would soon be a port through which large numbers of Scandinavian emigrants would pass on their route to a new home in the West. My prediction is being rapidly fulfilled, for not only are we having large numbers of Norwegian and Swedish emigrants, but Danish emigrants are coming our way.”
The most famous Swedish immigrant of the 19th century may be the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, the opera singer Johanna Maria ‘Jenny’ Lind (1820–1887).
The west coast of Scotland and the Western Isles are also close to Sweden, so if you are of Scottish descent, you may well have a Swedish branch in your family tree.