Matthew Roberts BA, PhD, FRHistS
Associate Professor in Modern British History
Summary
I am an historian of nineteenth-century Britain and the British Atlantic World, and currently Associate Professor (Reader) in Modern British History. I have taught at Hallam since 2005.
About
I work mainly on nineteenth-century British political and cultural history, with research specialisms in the history of popular politics and protest, the visual and material culture of politics, and the history of emotions. I remain passionate about nineteenth-century Britain, and believe that we still have much to learn about this fascinating period. Whether it's the Luddites, the Chartists, or the lives of artisans and millworkers - groups at the centre of my research - it is important that we as historians continue to research and reflect on these topics and communicate our findings to a wide range of audiences.
Specialist areas of interest
Political and social history of modern Britain; radical politics and protest.
Popular radicalism and protest politics, especially Luddism and Chartism, and parliamentary reform
How perspectives and methodologies drawn from visual and material culture can be used to cast new light on established areas of historical enquiry like parliamentary reform and protest
Teaching
Sheffield Creative Industries Institute
College of Social Sciences and Arts
History
BA History
Revolutions in the Atlantic World; Communicating History; Chartism
Research
- Culture and Creativity Research Institute
Publications
Journal articles
Roberts, M. (2025). Chartism. Revue française de civilisation britannique, XXX-1. http://doi.org/10.4000/133df
Roberts, M. (2023). Women, Late Chartism, and the Land Plan in Nottinghamshire. Midland History. http://doi.org/10.1080/0047729X.2023.2217226
Roberts, M. (2023). Popular politics, heritage and memories of Chartism in England and Wales, 1918–2020. Historical Research. http://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htad007
Roberts, M. (2022). Celebrities, Heroes and Champions: Popular politicians in the age of reform, 1810–67. Social History, 47 (2), 226-228. http://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2022.2045746
Roberts, M. (2021). Women and Late Chartism: Women's Rights in Mid-Victorian England. The English Historical Review, 136 (581), 918-949. http://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceab273
Roberts, M. (2021). E.P. Thompson, Shirley, and the Antinomian Tradition in West Riding Luddism and Popular Protest. Labour History: a journal of labour and social history, 86 (2), 187-214. http://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2021.9
Roberts, M. (2021). Tory-Radical Feeling in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley, and Early Victorian England. Victorian Studies, 63 (1), 34-56. http://doi.org/10.2979/victorianstudies.63.1.02
Roberts, M. (2019). Popular Virtue: Continuity and Change in Radical Moral Politics, 1820-70. LABOUR HISTORY REVIEW, 84 (1), 85-87.
Roberts, M. (2019). Politics, Performance and Popular Culture: Theatre and Society in Nineteenth‐Century Britain. Edited by PeterYeandle, KatherineNewey and JeffreyRichards. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2016. xiv, 279 pp. £75.00. ISBN 9780719091698. Parliamentary History, 38 (2), 299-301. http://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12422
Roberts, M. (2018). 1867-8: Tradition and Innovation in British Politics. Modern History Review, 21 (2).
Roberts, M. (2018). Richard Oastler, Toryism, Radicalism and the limitations of Party, c.1807-1846. Parliamentary History, 37 (2), 250-273. http://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12364
Roberts, M. (2018). Daniel O'Connell, repeal and Chartism in the age of Atlantic revolutions. The Journal of Modern History, 90 (1), 1-39. http://doi.org/10.1086/695882
Roberts, M. (2017). Protest and the Politics of Space and Place, 1789–1848. By KatrinaNavickas. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2016. xiv, 332 pp. Hardback £70.00; paperback £20.00. ISBN 9780719097058; 9781526116703. Parliamentary History, 36 (3), 407-409. http://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12308
Roberts, M. (2017). Rural Luddism and the makeshift economy of the Nottinghamshire Framework Knitters. Social History, 42 (3), 365-398. http://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2017.1327644
Roberts, M. (2015). Archive Report: Labouring in the Un-digitized Chartist Archive. Labour history review, 80 (2), 195-200. http://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2015.8
Roberts, M. (2015). The People's Charter. Modern History Review, 18 (2).
Roberts, M. (2014). Radicalism, Protest, and Repression in Britain, 1830-1848. Labour History Review, 79 (3), 329-336. http://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2014.17
Roberts, M. (2013). Chartism, Commemoration and the Cult of the Radical Hero c.1770-c.1840. Labour history review, 78 (1), 3-32. http://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2013.2
Roberts, M. (2013). Election Cartoons and Political Communication in Victorian England. Cultural and Social History, 10 (3), 369-395. http://doi.org/10.2752/147800413X13661166397229
Roberts, M. (2013). Essay in Review: Labouring in the Digital Archive. Labour History Review, 78 (1), 113-126. http://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2013.7
Nixon, M., Pentland, G., & Roberts, M. (2012). The material culture of Scottish reform politics, c.1820-c.1884. Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 32 (1), 28-49. http://doi.org/10.3366/jshs.2012.0034
Roberts, M. (2011). Resisting “Arithmocracy”: Parliament, community, and the Third Reform Act. Journal of British Studies, 50 (2), 381-409. http://doi.org/10.1086/658188
Roberts, M. (2010). Out of Chartism, into Liberalism: Popular Radicals and the Liberal Party in Mid-Victorian Britain. Journal of Liberal History.
Roberts, M. (2007). Popular Conservatism In Britain, 1832-1914. Parliamentary History, 26 (3), 387-410. http://doi.org/10.1353/pah.2007.0062
Roberts, M. (2006). Currents of Electoral Independence: James Lowther and Popular Politics in York, c.1856-1880. Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 78.
ROBERTS, M. (2006). ‘VILLA TORYISM’ AND POPULAR CONSERVATISM IN LEEDS, 1885–1902. The Historical Journal, 49 (1), 217-246. http://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x05005108
Roberts, M. (2006). Constructing a Tory world-view: popular politics and the Conservative press in late-Victorian Leeds*. Historical Research, 79 (203), 115-143. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2006.00367.x
Roberts, M. (2000). Gladstone and the Irish Question. Journal of Liberal History.
Book chapters
Roberts, M. (2023). Romantic memory? Forgetting, remembering and feeling in the Chartist pantheon of heroes, c. 1790–1840. (pp. 93-120). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc: http://doi.org/10.5040/9781350190498.ch-5
Roberts, M. (2023). From Colston to canons: Memory, tradition and the political use of the past in modern Britain. (pp. 1-14). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc: http://doi.org/10.5040/9781350190498.ch-1
Roberts, M. (2021). Catholicism and Constitutionalism in William Cobbett’s English and Irish Medievalism. In Subaltern Medievalisms. Medievalism "from below" in Nineteenth-Century Britain. (pp. 19-38). Boydell & Brewer: http://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448575
Roberts, M. (2019). The Makeshift Economy of the Nottinghamshire Framework Knitters, c.1780-1840. In Industrialisation and Working People Cromford and Beyond in the Era of the Industrial Revolution. Cromford Press
Roberts, M. (2019). The Makeshift Economy of the Nottinghamshire Framework Knitters, c.1780-1840. In Industrialisation and Working People Cromford and Beyond in the Era of the Industrial Revolution. Cromford Press
Roberts, M. (2019). Pentrich to Peterloo via New York: Paine, Cobbett and the Atlantic World. In From Pentrich to Peterloo Legacies of Protest for Political Change, 1817-1819. University of Nottingham
Roberts, M. (2019). Pentrich to Peterloo via New York: Paine, Cobbett and the Atlantic World. In From Pentrich to Peterloo Legacies of Protest for Political Change, 1817-1819. University of Nottingham
Roberts, M. (2018). God Save the Paddock Flag: Anti-Poor Law and Chartist Banners. In The Charter Our Right! Huddersfield Chartism Re-considered. Huddersfield Local History Society
Roberts, M. (2018). God Save the Paddock Flag: Anti-Poor Law and Chartist Banners. In The Charter Our Right! Huddersfield Chartism Re-considered. Huddersfield Local History Society
Roberts, M. (2017). Posthumous Paine in the United Kingdom, 1809-1832: Jacobin or Loyalist Cult? In The Legacy of Thomas Paine in the Transatlantic World. Routledge
Roberts, M. (2017). Posthumous Paine in the United Kingdom, 1809-1832: Jacobin or Loyalist Cult? In The Legacy of Thomas Paine in the Transatlantic World. Routledge
Roberts, M. (2015). '"The Feast of the Gridiron is at hand" : Chartism, Cobbett and Currency'. In Grande, J., & Stevenson, J. (Eds.) William Cobbett, Romanticism and the Enlightenment : Contexts and Legacies. (pp. 107-121). London: Pickering and Chatto
Roberts, M. (2014). Radical Banners from Peterloo to Chartism. In Return to Peterloo. Manchester Metropolitan University
Roberts, M. (2014). Radical Banners from Peterloo to Chartism. In Return to Peterloo. Manchester Metropolitan University
Roberts, M. (2013). 'A terrific outburst of political meteorology’: by-elections and the Unionist electoral ascendancy in late-Victorian England. In Otte, T.G., & Readman, P. (Eds.) By-elections in British politics, 1832-1914. (pp. 177-200). Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer
Roberts, M. (2007). W. L. Jackson, exemplary manliness and late-Victorian popular Conservatism. In Public men: political masculinities in Britain, 1700-2000. Palgrave
Roberts, M. (2007). W. L. Jackson, exemplary manliness and late-Victorian popular Conservatism. In Public men: political masculinities in Britain, 1700-2000. Palgrave
Books
Roberts, M. (2023). Memory and Modern British Politics: Commemoration, Tradition, Legacy.
Roberts, M. (2022). Democratic Passions The Politics of Feeling in British Popular Radicalism, 1809-1848. Manchester: Manchester University Press. https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526137043/
Roberts, M. (2019). Chartism, Commemoration and the Cult of the Radical Hero. Abingdon: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Chartism-Commemoration-and-the-Cult-of-the-Radical-Hero/Roberts/p/book/9780367187583
Roberts, M. (2008). Political Movements in Urban England, 1832-1914. Palgrave.
Theses / Dissertations
Stanley, J.W. (2020). The Yorkshire miners 1786-1839: a study of work, culture and protest. (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Roberts, M. http://doi.org/10.7190/shu-thesis-00324
Internet Publications
Roberts, M. (2021). What might labour historians do with history of emotions?
Roberts, M. (2020). An Impassioned Royal Scandal: The Queen Caroline Affair and the Politics of Feeling in Later Georgian England.
Roberts, M. (2017). Satan's Bank Note. https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/satan%E2%80%99s-bank-note
Roberts, M. (2008). Electoral reform dilemmas: are single-member constituencies out of date? https://historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/electoral-reform-dilemmas-are-single-member-constituencies-out-of-date/
Other activities
Co-book reviews editor for Labour History Review