This chapter argues that prior to the mass migration and globalisation of the nineteenth century, an earlier era of mass migration can be identified in the North Sea region between 1600 and 1950. It offers a quantitative analysis of Northwest Europe’s first major waves of internationalisation. It provides and analyses emigration rates and mobility patterns throughout the period, and seeks to determine the causes of increased migration within the region spanning Scotland, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It identifies two main waves of migration, occurring between 1550-1800 and 1850-1950 respectively. In exploring migration patterns, it defines four phases of movement: introductory, growth, saturation, and regression. Chain migration, industrialisation, the growth of urban populations, and the needs of the labour market are all considered, before concluding that the populace of the pre-industrialisation North Sea region was fairly mobile, linked to the supply of labour across the region, and statistically similar to the age of mass migration that followed later.
