[ARCHIVED CONTENT] We Were There

(left) 2nd Battalion Queen's Regiment, Belfast, 1969; (centre) Northern Ireland 1970s; (top right) Staff Sergeant Jenner Elba-Porter 1993; (bottom right) Hong Kong 1990s.

The involvement of men and women from Britain’s colonies with the Armed Forces changed with the loss of Empire. The main involvement of West Indians, Africans and Indians up to this time had been through their service with the colonial regiments and defence forces. The end of Empire and subsequent withdrawal from Hong Kong saw an end to this service, and the increasing use of direct recruitment into the British Armed Forces of people from the ethnic minority communities living in the United Kingdom.

At first this recruitment was limited, and subject to quotas. In 1961, for instance, the Army placed an upper limit on the proportion of ethnic minority personnel who could be accepted for enlistment in the Army. In practice this ‘quota’ (about 4,000) was never reached, the strength of ethnic minority personnel remaining at about 2,000 throughout its duration.

As time and attitudes changed, however, the Armed Forces began to view the increasingly ethnically diverse nature of the British population as an important source of recruitment, and in 1968 the Ministry of Defence decided to end the ‘quota’. But it was not until the 1990s that policies were put in place aimed at increasing the numbers of ethnic minority personnel.

Since 1996 the Ministry of Defence has been working with the Commission for Racial Equality to promote racial equality practices and eliminate all forms of racial discrimination and harassment in the Armed Forces. In 1998 this was cemented by the signing of a “Partnership Agreement” between the two organisations, undertaking to continue to work together for a further five years in order to promote and achieve greater racial equality in the Armed Forces.