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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Isambard_Brunel, who constructed the first underwater tunnel (but had a productive career in England before that).

I could probably find other French engineers fleeing the revolution, if need be.

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Good! Top marks! The French-born engineer Marc Isambard Brunel settled in Britain in March 1799. After fleeing the French Revolution and working in the United States, he sailed to England to present his inventions for mechanized pulley production to the British government.

But even if we suppose there are a few more (as you suggest), the involvement of a few white immigrants is not a good argument for non-white immigration.

If the goal is to argue for non-white immigration, the smart tactic would have been to leave the industrial revolution in the UK completely out of the argument so as to avoid creating an opening for someone like me to point out that the critical first 100 years of that revolution was led and innovated by more than 99% Brits with the rest being white immigrants.

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