Immigration, Statecraft and Public Health:The 1920 Aliens Order, Medical Examinations and the Limitations of the State in England

Taylor, Becky (2016) Immigration, Statecraft and Public Health:The 1920 Aliens Order, Medical Examinations and the Limitations of the State in England. Social History of Medicine, 29 (3). pp. 512-533. ISSN 0951-631X

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Abstract

This article considers the medical measures of the 1920 Aliens Order barring aliens from Britain. Building on existing local and port public health inspection, the requirement for aliens to be medically inspected before landing significantly expanded the duties of these state agencies and necessitated the creation of a new level of physical infrastructure and administrative machinery. This article closely examines the workings and limitations of alien medical inspection in two of England’s major ports – Liverpool and London. – and sheds light on the everyday working of the Act. In doing so it reflects on the ambitions, actions and limitations of the state and so extends research by historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth century on the disputed histories of public health and the complexities of statecraft. Overall it suggests the importance of developing nuanced understandings of the gaps and failures arising from the translation of legislation into practice.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	public health,state,aliens,immigration,governance,sdg 3 - good health and well-being,sdg 10 - reduced inequalities ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of History
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Migration Research Network
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	22 Mar 2016 09:16
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2022 02:36
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/57688
DOI:	10.1093/shm/hkv139

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