Faces in a London crowd: museum’s appeal to identify Windrush arrivals

Railway Museum in quest to tell stories of the West Indian passengers caught on camera at Waterloo station as they began a new life in Britain

Surrounded by luggage and fellow passengers, they were photographed arriving in smart clothes, high heels and fedoras, their faces tired and unsmiling as the underwhelming start of their new lives in the motherland is captured on camera.

Now a museum is appealing to the public to identify the West Indians portrayed in the pictures, taken by Howard Grey at Waterloo station in London, which document the last boatload of Windrush generation arrivals to Britain in spring 1962 before a crackdown on the open-door policy for Commonwealth immigrants.