Routes to Reading

Britain was part of the Roman Empire from AD 43 to AD 410. Archaeologists have found traces of incomers arriving from across the Roman Empire from France to North Africa. This diversity would have been found in the population of the Roman town of Calleva, located 10 miles south of Reading at Silchester. Our online exhibition explores the story of Roman Calleva or visit the Museum's Roman galleries.

Reading was first settled in the sixth century AD by Saxons who came here from northern Europe (you can see finds from their cemetery in the Museum's Story of Reading gallery). In AD 870 Viking raiders from Scandinavia set up an over-winter base at Reading, strategically located between the River Thames and River Kennet. Read our blog about the Vikings in Reading.

The Atlantic slave trade involved the transportation of enslaved African people by slave traders, mainly to the Americas to work on plantations from the 1600s to 1800s. This trade benefited sugar and cotton plantation owners and traders living in places like Reading. You can find more about Reading's links to the slave trade in our blog.

In the 1700s, it was fashionable for wealthy British families to have enslaved black servants. The Loveday family who lived at Caversham Court had a black nurse called Dorothy Blake. Dorothy had been enslaved in west Africa and given to Lady Hopkins, who was the aunt of John Lovegrove.

Between 1807 and 1814 nearly 600 Danish and Norwegian prisoners of war lived embedded in the Reading community ‘on parole’. Nearly all the prisoners were merchant seamen - innocent victims caught up in the conflict between the union of Denmark-Norway, a French ally, and Britain during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). Most were repatriated but some stayed in Reading, marrying local women. Discover the story of these prisoners on our blog.

In the nineteenth century agricultural workers from around southern Britain arrived in Reading for employment in expanding industries such as Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory. During the 1980s Reading saw a new influx of people attracted by the booming computer industry. Many came from Scotland and the north of England to work for companies like Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).

Many Irish people came over in the 1940s and 1950s to work in the region’s booming construction industry. The atomic bases at Aldermaston and Harwell were largely built by Irishmen, who were also very important in the construction of the M4 motorway.

At the end of the Second World War, the Polish army was demobbed at Nettlebed, just north of Reading, and many soldiers stayed rather than return to Communist-controlled Poland. More recently, after Poland joined the European Union a new generation of Polish people came to live and work in Reading.

In June 1948, a ship named Empire Windrush arrived in England after a long journey from the Caribbean. On board were over 800 enterprising young men and women, part of what became known as the Windrush generation. As British subjects they travelled with a sense of duty to the ‘Mother Country’ and its call for help to rebuild after the Second World War. Members of the Windrush generation made their lives in Reading, contributing to the town's social, cultural and economic fortunes.

In the 1960s, many people came to Reading from the rural Mirpur area of Azad Kashmir, in Pakistan. The cultural differences between rural Kashmir and urban England were enormous but the community thrived in Reading.

Reading also has a vibrant Indian community. This includes people of Indian origin who were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972 and airlifted to Britain where some then settled in Reading.