The history of Hackney’s diverse communities

Hackney is home to one of the largest Charedi Orthodox Jewish communities, outside New York and Israel. The Charedi community was established in Stamford Hill in the 1920s, growing significantly during the Second World War as new arrivals fled the Holocaust.

The community has generally been centred in four of Hackney’s northern wards: Cazenove, Lordship, New River, and Springfield, as well as in South Tottenham in Haringey. However, due to the decrease in housing availability over the last ten years this is starting to change.

According to the 2021 Census data, 6.7% of Hackney’s population are Jewish. Hackney residents speaking Yiddish as a main language account for nearly four fifths, (79.3%) of London’s main language Yiddish speakers, and nearly two thirds (59.2%) of England’s. With 1.27% (3174) of our population listing Yiddish as a main language in 2021, Hackney is home to the largest population of main language Yiddish speakers in the country. The Census likely under represents the number of Jewish residents, potentially underestimating children by as much as 35%. The Interlink Foundation, an organisation which brings together Orthodox Jewish communities in Hackney, estimates that the community represents closer to 12% of the population.

The community is young, with around half its members under the age of 19. It is diverse, with a mix of backgrounds, countries, and congregations. But, they’re linked by a shared adherence to the Torah’s tenets, lifelong religious study, and to marriage, family life, and support to others. Yiddish and English are their first languages.

For more information, visit jpr – Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

Hackney has a well-established Turkish and Kurdish speaking community. Turkish Cypriots who arrived from the 1930s as commonwealth citizens. Turkish people from mainland Turkey who came to live in London for both political and economic reasons in the 1970s and 1980s. The Kurdish community who fled persecution in Turkey, Iraq and Iran in large numbers in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Many Kurds from Turkey live in Hackney and Haringey and many Iraqi Kurds in Hammersmith. Many Kurdish residents speak Kurdish as their first language. The majority of Turkish-speaking residents belong to the Sunni sect of Islam, with most Kurds belonging to the Alevi sect. There are also a small number of Kurdish Christians.

According to the 2021 Census Turkish is the second most likely first language for Hackney residents after English, with 3.2% residents having their main language as Turkish.

Irish people have emigrated to London for hundreds of years. But, the 1940s and 1950s saw a significant number of Irish people come to work in areas such as construction and nursing – including in Hackney.

Due to the limited way the Census records Ethnicity, we may not have a full picture of the number of Irish residents in Hackney. However we know that 2% of Hackney’s population reported having a White Irish background.

Hackney’s Caribbean community is very diverse, compared to some other areas in the UK. People from Antigua and Jamaica have settled in Stoke Newington. St Lucians and Dominicans mainly moved into the Clapton neighbourhoods in the 1960s and 1970s. Hackney was also a main settlement for refugee Montserratians displaced after the eruption of the Soufrière Hills volcano in 1995.

At the time of the 1981 census, 26,653 people (around 15% of Hackney’s population) lived in households headed by somebody born in the Caribbean.

In 2021 9% (22,652 people) of Hackney’s residents described themselves as Caribbean, made up of 7% Black Caribbean and 2% white or mixed heritage.

Hackney’s Vietnamese population arrived after 1975. The UK government accepted quotas of refugees from camps in Hong Kong. This was under a planned resettlement scheme.

Further arrivals have taken place through family reunification, and a rise in international students. Due to the way the Census records Ethnicity, there is limited information on the number of Vietnamese people living in Hackney is unknown, though local community centres put the number at around 5,000, which is around 2% of the population.

People from African countries began arriving in large numbers in the 1960s. They arrived again in the 1980s from many countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. Initially they settled in the Dalston area but now live throughout the borough.

In 1991, 6.7% of the population identified themselves as Black/Black British African. By the 2021 Census this had risen to 11%, with an additional 1% being African with a mixed ethnicity.

According to the 2021 Census, the proportion of people of African heritage moving to Hackney has dropped compared to other parts of England. This may be due to the impact of reduced travel during the pandemic, or may have be a wider impact of the rise in the cost of living in Hackney.

London’s East End has long-standing connections with South Asia. But, it was only in the 1950s and 1960s that many people from South Asia began arriving in Hackney. The largest numbers are of Indian origin. They include Gujarati-speaking Muslims from India and East Africa. They often settled around Clapton. The second largest group were people with links to Bangladesh.

Due to the way the Census collects data on Ethnicity, it’s not known how many South Asians live in Hackney in total. However we know that as of the 2021 Census, 7% of Hackney’s population (17,847 people) were recorded in the Census as being Bangladeshi, Indian or Pakistani, representing almost 60% of Hackney’s Asian population (30,576 people, 12% of Hackney’s population). We also know from the Census that Bengali (with Sylheti and Chatgaya) and Gujarati are in the top ten of the most spoken first languages in Hackney. The majority of Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani residents are Muslims, although there are also a number Hindu and Sikh residents with Indian heritage.