Germans in the United Kingdom

There are many Germans living in the United Kingdom. Many people in the UK have German ancestors, including the British royal family. Germans born in Germany are one of the largest groups of people living in the UK who are not from the UK. Many of these people are British nationals because they were born in Germany to British military personnel based there. This shows how linked the histories of Germany and the United Kingdom are.

History

The Anglo-Saxons, ancestors of today's English people, were a Germanic people from northern Germany. They arrived when many people were moving and gave their name to Lower Saxony and the Anglian area.

Later, during the Middle Ages, Hanseatic traders and Protestant refugees came to Britain. By the late 1600s, many Germans, often businessmen from Hamburg, had settled there.

In 1714, George I, a German prince, became the British king and started the House of Hanover. Many royal family members after him had German ties. The royal family kept the German name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha until 1917, when they changed it to Windsor because of strong feelings against Germans during the First World War.

The UK's oldest German church, St Georges, was built in the 1700s. It helped German families and offered support to people escaping unfair treatment in Germany.

Population and distribution

The 2001 UK Census found 266,136 people born in Germany. This made them one of the larger groups of people living in the UK who were not born there. Many of these people were children of British military families who used to live in Germany and later moved back to the UK. Places like Wiltshire, Colchester, North Yorkshire, and Aldershot, which have many army bases, had about 12,000 people born in Germany.

By the 2011 UK Census, the numbers were 262,356 in England, 11,208 in Wales, 22,274 in Scotland, and 3,908 in Northern Ireland. In 2013, it was estimated that around 297,000 people in the UK were born in Germany, with about 189,000 being British citizens. Besides military areas, many German-born people live in West London, especially near Richmond, where there is a German school.

Influence

German Britons and German speakers have had a big impact on British life. They have created important family groups that have lasted a long time.

There are places and buildings named after well-known Germans. For example, Holbein Place in Central London is named after the painter Hans Holbein the Younger, and the Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath is dedicated to the astronomer William Herschel, who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781.

In music, George Frideric Handel, a famous composer, wrote special songs for the ceremony when King George II became king. He became a British citizen in 1727.

Germans have also done very well in business. The world's oldest diamond company, Backes & Strauss, was started in 1789 by German businessmen. In 1818, Johann Heinrich Schröder started the firm Schroders, which is now one of the biggest investment banks in the world. In 1851, Paul Julius Reuter created the Reuters news agency, which is a major financial news organization today.

Some important families in the UK come from Germany, like the Freuds and the Battenberg family. The Freud Museum honors the family’s history, and the Astor dynasty was started by John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever. The Battenberg family includes Prince Louis of Battenberg, his son Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and his grandson Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who married Queen Elizabeth II.

Education

The German School London helps children from German families living in London, the biggest city in the United Kingdom.

List

Main article: List of British people with German ancestry