Free online access to Alien Arrivals Collection

In a partnership with the UK National Archives, family history data provider Ancestry has just released online the Alien Arrivals Collection.

The Alien Arrivals Collection documents the arrival of more over 600,000 immigrants into the UK, in the periods 1810-1811 and 1826-1869.

This important addition to Ancestry's databases of migrant information can be searched and viewed free of charge on the Ancestry Library website at Oxfordshire Studies, Oxfordshire Record Office, and in all Oxfordshire County Council libraries.

Better still, it is now possible to use the Alien Arrivals records alongside complementary British records to paint a clearer picture of the impact of European immigration on 19th century Britain. Political and economic conditions in Italy, for example, encouraged many to seek a new life in England and Wales:

Charles Camozzi



Ironmonger and clockmaker Charles Camozzi was recorded in the 1841 census, living with his Bicester-born wife Eleanor and their five children.

By the time of the 1851 census his business has clearly propsered, with properties both in Bicester Market Place and Buckingham Market Place, and a son and son-in-law gainfully employed as watchmakers.

Charles Camozzi no doubt made several trips between Italy and Britain, securing his family's future, but he can be pinpointed for certain on a sailing of the steam vessel Ocean, journeying from Rotterdam to London on 18 September 1847 and, although he is listed as an 'alien', it's interesting to see that his country of origin is given as "Bicester, Oxon".

Friedrich Max Muller

German-born Max Muller, philologist and Sanskrit expert, was one of the early foreign academics attracted to Oxford University after the requirement to be a member of the Church of England was lifted.

Muller is to be found on the 11 June 1846 List of Aliens for a sailing from Boulogne, when he was known to have met The Times correspondent, William Howard Russell, after which the two became lifelong friends.

He became a great and respected figure in the University, and did much to promote Hindu life and culture in Europe. He married London-born Georgina Adelaide in 1859, and is recorded in the 1871 census for Norham Gardens, Oxford, with a thriving household of four children and six servants.

Saving a Century - fifty years of fighting for historic buildings

A photographic exhibition celebrating the work of the Victorian Society opens in Oxford on Tuesday 9 March.
Curated by leading architectural historian, Gavin Stamp, Saving a Century illustrates some of The Victorian Society’s most remarkable campaigns, among them the battles for St Pancras, Liverpool’s Albert Dock, the Foreign Office and the much-regretted Euston Arch.

The exhibition also contains photographs of buildings saved from the wrecking ball in Oxfordshire.

The exhibition runs from Tuesday 9 March at Oxfordshire Studies, Oxford Central Library, Westgate until 23 April 2010.

It is open Tue, Thu, Fri and Sat, 9am till 5pm. Free exhibition catalogues are available to take away.