British Poles, alternatively known as Polish British people or Polish Britons, are ethnic Poles who are citizens of the United Kingdom. The term includes people born in the UK who are of Polish descent and Polish-born people who reside in the UK. There are approximately 682,000 people born in Poland residing in the UK. Since the late 20th century, they have become one of the largest ethnic minorities in the country alongside Irish, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Germans, and Chinese. The Polish language is the second-most spoken language in England and the third-most spoken in the UK after English and Welsh. About 1% of the UK population speaks Polish. The Polish population in the UK has increased more than tenfold since 2001.
Exchanges between the two countries date to the middle ages, when the Kingdom of England and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were linked by trade and diplomacy. A notable 16th-century Polish resident in England was John Laski, a Protestant convert who influenced the course of the English Reformation and helped in establishing the Church of England. Following the 18th-century dismemberment of the Commonwealth in three successive partitions by Poland's neighbours, the trickle of Polish immigrants to Britain increased in the aftermath of two 19th-century uprisings (1831 and 1863) that forced much of Poland's social and political elite into exile. London became a haven for the burgeoning ideas of Polish socialism as a solution for regaining independence as it sought international support for the forthcoming Polish uprising. A number of Polish exiles fought in the Crimean War on the British side. In the late 19th century governments mounted pogroms against Polish Jews in the Russian (Congress Poland) and Austrian sectors of partitioned Poland (Galicia). Many Polish Jews fled their partitioned homeland, and most emigrated to the United States, but some settled in British cities, especially London, Manchester, Leeds and Kingston upon Hull.
