Example history dissertation topic 1:

A consequence of municipal inaction: working-class housing conditions in the West Midlands 1840 – 1926.

This dissertation suggests that a predominant factor in determining both the quality and affordability of working-class houses in the towns of the West Midlands was the extent to which local authorities were politically willing and able to take action to address the housing needs of their poorest inhabitants. In so doing it firstly charts municipal inaction with regard to self-improvement in the period prior to the Local Government Acts of the 1880s and 1890. Thereafter it notes the transfer from local political arena to national political agenda and the result that during the 1920s and assess the importance, upon the quality of housing provided, reports such as that of Tudor Walters and the Garden City Movement.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Pritchard, R.M. (1976) Housing and the spatial structure of the city. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Pugh, M. (1999) State and society: A social and political history of Britain 1870 – 1997 (2nd edn). London: Hodder Arnold.
• Rodgers, R. (1995) Housing in urban Britain 1780 – 1914.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.