England’s Immigrants: Were there really aliens - Lesson 1

1. The England’s Immigrants Project
Teacher Scholar Scheme 2016
Were there really aliens living among the
population of England in the 15th
century?
Lesson 1

2. Welcome!
Listen to the music and get ready to go
back in time on the history timeline
journey!!
First task:
•Draw an alien (‘What- has my teacher
gone mad- isn’t this a HISTORY lesson??’)
•Fold the paper in half after you have
named it and hand it to your teacher

3. Your turn to have a think
• Why have you been asked to draw an
alien?
• How do these aliens fit into the history
lesson?
• Chat to your partner and come up with a
brilliant idea- feel free to take a risk on
this one!

4. Before we get going, are you clear on
when the medieval period was?
• We cover a lot of different historical periods in
school, sometimes it can get confusing.
• Sometimes people get confused e.g.
–Were the Romans medieval?
–What about the Georgians?
• Let’s start by placing the medieval period on a
timeline of the history we know

5. The Romans
TheStuarts
The Vikings
The Georgians
The Anglo Saxons
The Victorians
Britain since the 1930s
The Tudors
2012 AD
43 AD
1300 BC
800 AD
1000 AD
1509 AD
1605 AD
1722 AD
1837 AD
1930 AD
1 AD
The Egyptians
The Olympics
The Birth of Jesus
The Medieval Period

6. So if there were aliens in medieval
England, what did they look like?
Did your aliens look like this?

7. Aliens in medieval England!!!
• Actually, there were aliens in
Britain in the medieval period.
• Between the years 1330 and
1550 there were 17194 Aliens
in London alone.
• Although they probably looked
more like this than our aliens…
• So if aliens were not from outer
space then who were they and
where were they from?

8. Medieval
aliens
• Alien really
means ‘other’
• So in medieval
England aliens
were basically
foreigners
• We know quite
a lot about
these aliens…

9. Medieval aliens
• You have seen there were many
aliens in London – what about
elsewhere in the country?
• Use the England’s Immigrants
database to find out …
– How many aliens were there in
Norfolk in the 1440s?
– What places did the aliens come
from?
– Is this figure very different in
different periods?
• Repeat this investigation for a few
other places– you choose which ones!

10. Looking closer at the aliens…
• Let’s look more closely at our investigation:
• Why were the aliens in England and what were they doing?
• Use the activity sheet to read the letter from Patrick the
clergyman about aliens in London and Norwich.
• Use the database to decide whether Patrick is a reliable
source of information.
• Write some reports of your own and see if you can do a
better job than Patrick.

11. Oh, and by the way, the aliens were
not all men!
• Let’s have a look at some other females on the database
• Follow the instructions
• Open the database again
• www.englandsimmigrants.com
• Click on BROWSE
• Click on FEMALE under GENDER ….

12. What can we learn about female
aliens?
• How many alien women are there on the
database which covers 1300-1550?
• Where do they seem to be living?
• What is their social status?
• What jobs do they do?

13. Finally, write a short paragraph to
follow this starter sentence…
• Actually there were aliens in medieval
England, but it is probably not what you
are thinking. What historians mean is…