MA dissertations 1956-2020

MA dissertations undertaken by our alumni between 1965 and 2020

2020

• Brookes, J. Shaping Worfield: lordly avarice, neighbourhood watch or wider forces: social change in rural Shropshire, 1440-1660.
• Coyne, A. ‘The Wool, the Lamb and the Flock’, a study of Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, during the fourteenth century.
• Donegani, K.L. Apprenticeship in Leicestershire in the mid-nineteenth century.
• Immins, P. The experience of a working-class woman: Leicester in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

2019

• Bourne, S. Bolton, parish conflict and the legacy of the English Revolution, 1640-1680. 
• Bryceland, M. The new village of South Wigston, 1880-1910: the place, the people and the communities. 
• Parker, J. Proto-industrialization and family life: an examination of the framework knitting industry in Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, from the 1851 census. 
• Russll, D. Merely a lake? The fluidity of Whittlesey Mere in medieval and early modern England 
• Shaw, P. Terroir and tradition: how farming choice influenced settlement in Leicestershire’s Wreake valley 

2018

• Hargreaves, S. Population and society in Hopton, a township in Derbyshire, 1660-1705.
• Harvey, B. Service and mobility.

2017

• Brown, L. Power, charity and brotherly love: local government and society in two Essex towns: Thaxted and Braintree, 1580-1660.

2016

• Evans, J. The ethnic sense of the English in nineteenth-century emigrants’ letters.
• Hanley, K. Leicester: the metropolis of Dissent by 1848? 
• Hargreaves, P. Physicians in seventeenth-century Northamptonshire.
• Jones, T. An examination of the tripartite relationship between women, clothing and emancipation during the period 1890-1920s: what factors influenced changes to female clothing and did this expedite female emancipation? 
• Pullin, J. The LBSCR drivers: a study of the engine drivers employed by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, 1850-1885
• Round, L. ‘Be kindly affectioned to one another’: love and parish politics in Stanton Lacy, Shropshire 
• Sutherland, A. Using manorial custumals to explore the peasant experience in medieval England, c.1251-1354

2015

• Blacklaws, N. Outdoor relief in Blaby poor law union: Leicestershire, c. 1916-1926.
• Butler, A. Leicester’s cultural catastrophe: an investigation into the complete closure of Leicester’s professional theatres in the 1950s.
• Cotton, C. ‘Black Roods, Rang Back and Dob Headland’: a study of Thrussington field-names.
• Hammond, P. The effect of improvement in a selected area of north-west Leicestershire, 1750-1800.
• Haworth, C. The origin and development of the street plan of Oakham in John Speed’s town plan.
• Leonard, P Poor relief in Stow in Lindsey, 1750-1833.
• Marshall, A. The psyche of the landowner and the development of the country house estate: an examination of the woodland and avenues at Boughton House, 1700-1750.
• Riley, J. Holmfirth: a study in regional and local identity and community.
• Robinson, D. Charnwood Forest and its visitors, 1500-1900
• Shea, K. A comparative study of the feminization of the teaching profession in United Kingdom and United States of America from 1890 to 1930.
• Spiers, A. Bread supplied for London, 1750-1830.
• Taylor, J. A national phenomenon in local context: Victorian church restorations in Nottinghamshire.

2014

• Emery, J. ‘The future beckons bright': senses of place and placelessness in the Newark and Sherwood coalfield, c.1960s to present.
• Fagg, J. Occupation, migration and the elderly: aspects of life in three Worcestershire parishes, 1871-1901.
• Gibson, N.H. Comparing poor relief in the parishes of Wallsend and Longbenton, 1750-1850.
• Mee, R. 'Leaden heels, but iron hands’: prosecution associations in Derbyshire, 1703-2013. 
• Musgrave, D. The River Soar and Leicester: a neglected relationship.
• Poulton, W. The parish of West Langton in the Age of Improvement: a study based on a ‘Book of Accounts and Memorandums’ for 18191822 written by William Price, farmer and grazier of West Langton, Leicestershire.
• Tonge, H. Social mobility in later medieval England: the Pouger family and their kinship and patronage networks.
  
  2013
  
  
• Bland, J. The impact of a coal mine on a small Warwickshire agricultural community: the creation of a hybrid society.
• Bonnette-Anderson, D. The social implications of church seating in Buckinghamshire.
• Caws, S. Continuity or change? The Isle of Wight and the Agricultural Revolution, 1750-1850. 
• Gadd, T. St George, Gloucestershire, 1750-1850: social and economic relations in a marginal parish.
• Gristwood, H. Puerperal insanity: a study of women admitted to the county asylums at Brookwood in Surrey, Colney Hatch in Middlesex and Knowle in Hampshire between the years 1870 and 1900.
• Moss, S. The Embroiderers’ Guild, 1906-2012: elitist, exclusive and outmoded or professional, influential and avant-garde?
• Mulcahey, K. Perceptions of peddling: a study of the reputation of Hawkers and Pedlars, 1780 to 1914.
• Paterson, M. Sir Nathan Wright, 1653-1721, Recorder of Leicester, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and his ‘Notebook’.
• Richards, D. The culture of nonconformity in Castle Donington, 1650-1950.
• Stones, A. Estate mentalities: changing sense of place on a Leicester council estate, 1947-2012.
  
  2012
  
  
• Batman, P. The survival of rural core families: Bolton Percy and Poppleton in the Ainsty of York from Enclosure to the Second World War. 
• Beardmore, C. The rural community through the eyes of the land-agent.
• Browness, S. Witnesses to change: early domestic travel writing in the Fens.
• Charlesworth, D. The development of the churches and their landscapes in northwest Gloucestershire, 1000-1300.
• French, P.R. The ‘making’ of a local regiment: a case study of the Leicestershire regiment and its antecedents, c.1770-1902.
• Harvey, B. Swinton, south Yorkshire – a very ‘northern’ parish? Pauper narratives, 1799-1837. 
• Horton, B. The Kidderminster carpet weaver: his migration response to the technological change from hand loom to power loom weaving between 1851 and 1881.
• Leedham, A. Gravestones and identity from the five ancient parish churches and churchyards of Leicester.
• Quinn, N. Rates and reform: the Lancaster poor law union, 1870-1911.
• Side, C. Migration from the Wiltshire village of Chute during the nineteenth century.
• Weller, V. Coercion, compliance or conversion? The impact of religious change in north-east Warwickshire between 1530 and 1559.
• Whiting, A. Merely ‘mechanical’, ‘ministerial’ and ‘menial’, or much, much more? What was the role of professional attorneys in late thirteenth-century litigation as revealed by evidence from the 1268 Buckinghamshire eyre?

2011

• Heaton, M. The influence of Parliamentary Enclosure on Grassing-Down in Northamptonshire.
• Jakeway, J. Manifestations of madness: a study of the patients of Norfolk County Asylum, 1846-1870.
• Jones, R. The collapse of Luddism in the West Riding, 1811-13.
• Kilby, S. A different world? Reconstructing the peasant environment in medieval Elton.
• O’Donnell, R. Beyond the origins debate: developing dynamic models of Leicestershire open fields.
• Parry, J. The marriage market in market towns: Diss and Guildford in the Commonwealth.
• Pearson, H. Of cows, ploughs and more than a few sheep: an oral history of farming in Walton-on-the-Wolds, 1939-2010.
• Phipps, S Schoolmistresses in Swindon, 1870-1902.
• Segrt, M. Oxfordshire landscapes of myth and legend: perceived landscapes and landscapes of belief.
• Shipman, P. An investigation into the early development and running of Countesthorpe cottage homes and the education and welfare of Leicester pauper children under the Poor Law, 1881-1914.

2010

• Bowen, J. A landscape of improvement: the impact of James Loch, chief agent to the Marquis of Stafford on the Lilleshall estate, Shropshire, 1720-1820. 
• Davidson, E. The evolution and secularisation of the funeral in Leicester and Leicestershire, 1830-2010. 
• Flack, H. The River Severn – barrier or bridge? The impact on communities of the River Severn in Worcestershire in the period c.850 to 1500.    
• Hardy, M. Exe-Dart Devon: some social and economic effects of the Newfoundland trade. 
• Hawkins, M. The impact of the building of the Grand Junction Canal on selected settlements in Northamptonshire, 1793-1850. 
• Jamieson, D. Willington: landscape and society from 1380 to 1540. 
• Lomas, C. The dynamics of early medieval town development in Somerset. 
• O’neill, M. Medieval women as food providers. 
• Schmidt, A. Getting there ... a review of the roads and track ways of northeast Leicestershire: particularly those that may have been used by drovers. Stewart, S. The impact of enclosure in Leicestershire on the parson and his glebe land 1760-1830: Billesdon, Lutterworth and Rothley. 
• Tedd, M. Naming in Anstey 1850-1950: a mirror of social structure. 
• Tyler, S. The silk ribbon weaving industry of Coventry. With a case study: Bulkington an outdoor working community in the Coventry silk ribbon weaving trade, 1818-1863. 
• Whitehead, M. What happened in, and what happened to, Sunday Schools Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire 1800-2000? 

• Barbour, R Gundogs in nineteenth-century Warwickshire: a guide to social change. 
• Cowen, P.E. The transformation of a yeoman society: Windermere 1640-1841. 
• Dow, D. Stockport, the prototype mill town: the why, wherefore and therefore. 
• Plom, A.J. The demise of slavery in early England, ecclesiastic erosion or economic evolution?