Title says it all. Thanks.
It doesn’t explain what or who a Jim Crow is, so I can’t answer, I’m afraid! Care to explain what a Jim Crow law is, and I’ll see if I can answer.
Jim Crow laws were laws in the US that oppressed blacks - for example, denying them the right to vote, enforcing segregation, etc.
No, the UK had no Jim Crow laws as far as I’m aware. Prejudice aplenty, of course, just not codified.
Jim Crow laws were laws, largely in the southern United States that brought about racial segregation.
Ah. Well, I’ve no idea about Canada, NZ, or Oz, but while there was a lot of societal prejudice which might have amounted practically to much the same, there were no specific laws in the UK that I’m aware of. At least not in modern history - I’d be amazed if there weren’t some much older weird laws regarding such things.
Canada had racial restrictions on voting until surprisingly late; the restrictions weren’t lifted until 1947 for those of Chinese and Indian descent, 1948 for those of Japanese descent, and 1960 for those of Native American descent. (Previous to this, Native Americans could vote only if they gave up their legal status as natives.) There were also some racially motivated laws & policies such as the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 and the residential schools. However, I don’t think the separation between races was ever quite as legally institutionalized in Canada as it was under Jim Crow.
A lot of places in Canada, especially Ontario and Nova Scotia, also had racially segregated schools (and in fact, the last segregated school in Nova Scotia didn’t close until 1983. The last in Ontario was a black school in Merlin, in 1965).
There were also segregated private facilities. I’m seeing here that it was until 1963 in Quebec, that it was made illegal to discriminate in hotels or restaurants according to race, and 1964, illegal to discriminate in terms of employment according to race. Before that, it was legal to refuse to hire or serve a black person.
And Jackie Robinson actually broke baseball’s color barrier in two countries, because before he went to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, he played for their farm club, the Montreal Royals, in 1946.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, England and the UK had laws preventing Catholics and Protestant dissenters from holding public office. That may be the closest thing one would find over there.
Also, if they weren’t barred outright from being in the country, there were a lot of laws in England and the UK that restricted the activities of Jews.
Not against blacks. (There were hardly any in the UK anyway.)
But lots of laws against the Irish. And catholics & Jews and the poor in general. Laws that prevented them from voting, or owning property, etc.
As late as the mid-1970s Australia had decidedly racist immigration policies. It would not be uncommon for a potential immigrant from an “undesirable” country to be deliberately given an immigration test in a language not their own. In other words, a potential black immigrant from an African country would have to take the immigration test written in Russian. Or a potential immigrant from Greece would have to take the immigration test written in Gaelic. Neither had any chance in passing and would be denied entry. The White Australia Policy finally disappeared officially in 1975.
When I lived in Oz the only regularly continuing overt racism I witnessed was against the Aborigines. However, I did see regular covert racism almost daily against practically anyone who wasn’t an Ocker Aussie, including Americans (with some Yanks more accepted than others).
IIRC Australian Aborigines as a whole didn’t get the right to vote at the federal level until the 1960s. There were a handful who were grandfathered in at Federation because they were enrolled in some colonies/states and some were granted the franchise because they served in the military. AFAIK Australia never had any miscegenation laws per se (indeed there was talking of “breeding the black out” of the Aborigines), but I highly doubt a relationship between an aboriginal man and a white woman would’ve met with acceptance (or anything less than a lynching) historically. I think there were also restrictions on Aborigines buying liquor.
Over in New Zealand the Maori were given the vote in 1867 without having to meet property qualifications (European men didn’t have that right for another decade), but could only vote in 4 special “Maori seats” until 1976. The number of seats did not change as New Zealand’s population increased or the size of Parliament increased.
According to the NZ Elections site on the Maori voteit seems to have been a bit more nuanced than that – although alphaboi867 has hit the main points. The bits I’d add from that site is that the few Maori that did meet the property qualifications in 1867 could choose to vote in European electorates, and that later on part-Maori could choose whether to be on the Maori or European electoral rolls.
I don’t know if there were laws against the “Irish” per se, but Irish Catholics were persecuted under the Penal Laws. Presbyterians too were discriminated against, but not to the same degree as Catholics.
Australian 1967 Referendum
The 1967 Referendum proposed to include Aboriginal people in the census and to allow the Commonwealth government to make laws for Aboriginal people. It passed in all states with a national 90% Yes vote.
The 1967 Referendum:
•did not give Indigenous people the right to vote. This right was already introduced in 1962.
•did not grant them citizenship. By the time of the referendum, most of the specific federal and state laws discriminating against Aboriginal people had been repealed.
•was not about equal rights for Aboriginal people.
The referendum removed the words “other than the aboriginal race in any State”.
Administration of aboriginal affairs pre 1967 was left to the various states, and were inconsistent and in various measures patronising and discrimatory, none were progressive.
The inclusion of the words were thought to be a fundamental safeguard against discriminatory Commonwealth legislation directed against the Aboriginal population. It also meant that the Comonwealth could not pass laws to benefit the Aboriginal population.
Jim Crow laws were about racial segregation and racial privilege in matters of citizenship, and more specifically about the vaguely defined “white” race having full privileges and the vaguely defined “black” race having much reduced privileges.
In the United Kingdom it would not have made much sense for skin-color based institutional racism to be codified into an elaborate legal system mainly because most everyone had the same skin color in the UK through at least the early part of the 20th century (and it is still heavily white.)
For much of its history as a United Kingdom it is essentially undeniable that the English treated the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish as lesser peoples and subjugated them in various ways. The treatment of the Irish is an acknowledge national shame, and while the Scottish and Welsh mistreatment tended to be more removed from current history, they certainly were given the short end of the stick for much of the history of the UK (as recently as the 18th century there were forced displacements of highlands clans in Scotland.)
While this is all true, it’s important to note that land in communal ownership (which covered most land owned by Maori) could not be used to meet the property requirement. So very few Maori would have been eligble to vote prior to the creation of the Maori seats.
It’s probably also worth mentioning that Maori received the “full rights and duties of British Subjects” under article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, so have enjoyed formal citizenship since the creation of New Zealand as a colony. (cf the position of the indigenous peoples in Australia).
It also meant that Aborigines would be counted in the census, which was not previously the case.
Edited to add: This was the fifth amendment to the Australian constitution, leading to stories (possibly apochryphal) about people “pleading the 5th” in court and being asked by the judge what relevance including aborigines in the census had to do with the case.
Yes, agreed. Very few Maori would have been able to vote until the 1867 change (and thereafter only in the Maori seats).
As to how many could vote in European electorates post the removal of the property requirement… errmmm… it seems to get tricky. 
It looks like by WWI as much as 1/2 the Maori population were of mixed ancestry and could theoretically choose their electoral roll.
It may be worth noting that there is no test for Maori descent to have the option of selecting roll. If when you enroll to vote “you say you are a New Zealand Māori or a descendant of a New Zealand Māori” (NZ elections site) then the Maori roll or general roll option is available.