I can offer historical consultancy, research, writing and talks on a range of social and cultural history subjects from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including (but not limited to):
- British and Irish history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- History of the West Midlands
- Immigration and the experiences of diverse communities in and related to Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- Urban spaces – cities, towns, neighbourhoods, homes, public spaces
- History and experience of poverty
- History of housing
- Oral histories – research design and interviews
- Historical mapping and GIS
- Family history and genealogy
My particular love is the social history of the Black Country and its people, from the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath to the Punjabi foundrymen of 1960s Smethwick; from the Irish famine emigrants of 1847 to the changing face of the canals; from its public health provision to its industrial organisation to its criminal past.
I am also available for illustrated talks on Black Country history for local history societies, or any other kind of community group. Talks I can give include (but are not limited to!):
- Forging Ahead: the Black Country 1945-1968
- Carribee Island – Wolverhampton’s Irish Quarter
- Finding the Irish in the Victorian Black Country
- Dirt and disease: the Victorian inventin of public health
- History of housing in the Black Country
- The 1951 Festival of Britain in the Black Country
Please contact me if you would like to explore other subjects.