The ship brought a group of 802 migrants to the port of Tilbury, near London, on 22 June 1948. "Empire Windrush" was a troopship en route from Australia to England via the Atlantic, docking in Kingston, Jamaica, in order to pick up servicemen who were on leave. An advertisement had appeared in a Jamaican newspaper offering cheap transport on the ship for anybody who wanted to come and work in the United Kingdom. Many former servicemen took this opportunity to return to Britain with the hopes of rejoining the RAF, while others decided to make the journey just to see what England was like. The arrivals were temporarily housed in the Clapham South deep shelter in southwest London, about away from Coldharbour Lane in Brixton. Many only intended to stay in Britain for a few years, but although a number returned to the Caribbean, the majority remained to settle permanently. The arrival of the passengers has become an important landmark in the history of modern Britain, and the image of West Indians filing off the ship's gangplank has come to symbolise the beginning of modern British multicultural society.