The project

Migration Stories NW (2021-24) is a National Lottery Heritage Fund project documenting histories of migration in and out of the North West of England from the Roman period to the present day.

The project is coordinated by Global Link in Lancaster and involves four other North West partners: Cheshire Global Learning, Crossing Footprints in Manchester, Cumbria Development Education Centre and Liverpool World Centre. We are supported by historians, archives, museums and libraries from across the region and beyond. See a list of who we have worked with here.

In the first year of the project, each partner worked with a local group of adult research volunteers to gather individual histories of women, men and children who migrated in or out of the North West from the Roman era until the middle of the twentieth century. These histories feature on our interactive Migration Stories map, launched in December 2022.

During the second stage of the project we worked with young people to share our stories so far and conduct oral histories with recent migrants to the North West to be added to the map.

In the final year of the project the partners are using the stories gathered during this project to develop a learning resource for schools that explores the connections between historical and contemporary migration. We are also producing films and a touring pop-up exhibition that will visit each of the partner locations to share our stories with the wider public.

In this time of increasingly negative attitudes towards asylum seekers and ‘illegal’ entrants to the UK, Migration Stories NW shows how migration is a normal part of human existence that has shaped the social landscape of our region for centuries.

The Migration Stories NW project team at our kick-off meeting in November 2021