| Description | Minute volumes BCC/1/AM/11/1/2 and 3 indexed. The minutes are printed and signed by the committee chairman. Minutes BCC/1/AM/11/1/1 are in the appropriately titled sub-committee minute volume. Minutes BCC/1/AM/11/1/2 onwards are in the appropriately dated combined sub-committee minute volumes (see BCC/1/AM/26/1). The minutes include the reports of the Housing Director; details of the acquisition of land for housing projects; information on applicants for new houses, including numbers of houses let and applications in hand; Orders of Precedence for granting a tenancy of any house erected under the Assisted Scheme; reports relating to protests by Corporation tenants over rents and provision of utilities such as water and gas in homes; lists of tenants in arrears (including names, addresses, rent paid, amount in arrears and other remarks); and details of tenants evicted from their homes. A good deal of tenants who were in arrears during the early 1920s were unemployed or forced to work on 'short time' due to the economic downturn, and the Council had to face a number of rent strikes that began during the First World War (1914 - 1918) and continued into the early 1920s. Many of which were organised by ex-servicemen, and municipal housing policy developed in order to reduce the risk of disatisfaction amongst the less affluent of Birmingham's citizens and reduce social conflict. The minutes are a good source of information for researchers interested in social history and the history of inter-war housing and social welfare policy. |