Migrants and the Media in Nineteenth-Century Liverpool

Abstract

Migration is a controversial topic in twenty-first century Britain, and similar debates were equally visible in the nineteenth century with ample evidence that migrants from Ireland and Europe faced stigmatisation and discrimination in British cities. Today the media plays a major role in fuelling such debates, but little is known about the impact of newspaper reporting on public perceptions of migrants in the past. This article focuses on the reporting of cases brought before the police courts in Liverpool in 1851, 1871 and 1891 and, through the use of nominal record linkage to census data, examines the extent and manner in which migrant origin was commented on in one major Liverpool newspaper. It is demonstrated that, perhaps surprising, this media outlet largely ignored migrant origin in its reporting, and thus it was not a significant factor in shaping public perceptions of migrants in the city.