| Sumario: | Known as ‘the Scots’, the British were, after the Germans, the second largest minority group in seventeenth-century Poland. They were tradesmen, artisans, political and religious émigrés (Catholics, opponents of the Anglican Church), soldiers drafted into the Polish Army, professors of the academies and colleges and students. Occasionally Poland was visited by distinguished men of culture, technical experts and wandering theatre groups. From the seventeenth century onwards the British living in Poland had their own self-government consisting of over twelve artisan, merchant and religious brotherhoods. This self-governing body had its own written law and was represented by a council of elders chosen in elections. Some of the British living in the seventeenth century contributed significantly to Polish culture. In eighteenth-century Poland they started to be Polonised.
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