Such a good book. One to pair with David Olusoga's  Black and British.  https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/365fcf8d-a7da-4542-af40-659b073e5d83

 The book is an excellent mixture of both overview and short biographies; it doesn't get stuck in London as far too many books about migrants do, it really is about *Britain*, and it does a fantastic job of exploring the nuances of experience, the different ways in which racism manifested and the different effects it had on different social classes of Indians.  Thmost depressing aspect is the ramping up of racism and discrimination in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century: and if you think I'm going to say it's got better, I'm not. The kind of discriminatory migration laws that successive governments (of both major parties) have brought in since the '50s are foreshadowed in the 1930s when Indian citizens of the Empire were stripped of the right to settle in a country they had been taught they belonged to.

I would particularly recommend this book if you are writing historical fiction: far too many authors write the early 19th century scene as if it's the late 19th century and Visram and Olusaga both do a fantastic job of exploring how different it was, and why.

There are too many fantastic stories for me to easily choose favourites, but I was embarrassed to realise it had never occurred to me to ask what happened to Seke Dean Mohammed, the Shampooer (masseur and surgeon) of Brighton, or to consider whether he had a family. In fact, his grandchildren entered the professions (much like the grandchildren of immigrants today) and anyone who suffers from hypertension, owes a debt to Frederick Akbar Mohamed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Akbar_Mahomed