Seamstress, nurse, caterer: Celebrating the Windrush women

Timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the arrival of SS Empire Windrush, which brought 492 Caribbean migrants to the UK, a new exhibition comprising a series of photo essays and portraiture by Jim Grover is on show at the Oxo Tower in London.

The government's immigration policies have been in the spotlight in recent weeks because of the Windrush scandal. Some migrants have been threatened with deportation in recent years, despite being in the country legally. Many have no formal documentation, which has led to them being refused jobs or healthcare.

Here, we present a set of portraits of women who are part of the Windrush generation.

Ruby

Ruby arrived in 1955 from Westmorland, Jamaica, aged 19
She first worked as an auxiliary nurse in St Stephen's Hospital, Fulham
Ruby holds a photograph of herself in the Coach and Horses pub in Brixton, south London, in the 1980s, where she worked as barmaid

Rose

Rose arrived in 1956 from Kingston, Jamaica, aged 24
She worked as a nurse in the Brompton Hospital in Knightsbridge, west London
The photograph held by Rose was taken in Harry Jacobs's studio

Eleithia

Eleithia arrived in 1957 from Saint Thomas, Jamaica, aged 18
She worked in a laundry in Hendon, north London
The archive photograph was taken on the day of her marriage to Norman in Stamford Hill, north London, in 1960

Norma

Norma arrived in 1958 from Saint Thomas, Jamaica, aged 13
She worked as a seamstress in a dress factory in the West End
The hand-coloured photograph held by Norma was taken in a photography studio on the Brixton Road in the late 1960s

Pearlene

Pearlene arrived in 1958 from Saint Catherine, Jamaica, aged 19
She worked as a caterer at Express Dairy in Charing Cross, central London
Pearlene is displaying the photograph in her 1958 British passport

Hermine

Hermine arrived in 1959, from Clarendon, Jamaica, aged 21
She worked in a Brixton laundry
Hermine holds a picture taken at her wedding to Lester in the Brixton registry office in 1960. She had met Lester on the wharf in Kingston as they were about to board the same ship that would bring them to Britain

Delores

Delores arrived in 1961 from Saint Ann, Jamaica, aged 25
She worked on an assembly line making Tannoy loudspeakers in Gypsy Hill, south London
Delores is pictured with her mother, Rose, in a photograph taken in a studio in Jamaica

Hyacinth

Hyacinth arrived in 1962 from Portland, Jamaica, aged 15
She was a machinist in a baby clothes factory in Holborn, central London
Hyacinth was also photographed in Harry Jacobs's Brixton studio, on her 25th birthday

Olive

Olive arrived in 1964 from Berbice, Guyana, aged 13
She was a seamstress in a clothes factory in south Wimbledon, south-west London
The black-and-white picture of Olive was taken in a Clapham photography studio in 1969

Daphne

Daphne arrived in 1971 from Saint Ann, Jamaica, aged 22
She worked in a factory making suitcases on the Wandsworth Road, south London
Daphne holds a picture of herself at a wedding in Jamaica when she was 16 and wearing make-up for the first time

Monica

Monica arrived in 1974 from Saint Thomas, Jamaica, aged 25
She was a cleaner on a geriatric ward in Dulwich Hospital, south London
The photograph in her album was taken at her home in Camberwell Green, south London, in 1985

Jim Grover's pictures, Windrush: Portrait of a Generation, can be seen at the Oxo Tower Wharf, London, from 24 May until 10 June

All photographs by Jim Grover