Dr MATTHEW STEPHENS

I’m currently a Fellow in Applied History at The Social History Archive part-time, also working as a freelance historian, researcher, author, editor and lecturer. I am always happy to consider opportunities for further work in the field. From 2021-25, I was an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD student at Edge Hill University and the British Library, working under:

Professor Bob Nicholson, Professor of Public History, Edge Hill University

Dr Andrew McInnes, Reader in Romanticisms, Edge Hill University

Dr Beth Gaskell, Lead Curator, News and Moving Image, British Library

Dr Mia Ridge, Digital Curator, Western Heritage Collections, British Library

You can find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky Social, where I’m also known as Nineteenth-century Newshound.

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I’m always happy to hear from anyone with an interest in my research, so do please put quill to parchment.

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FROM THE BLOG

Latest News

  • Looking North

    Acutely aware that I haven’t written a blog post for some time, I was wrestling to find a suitable topic. It has certainly been an eventful few months, with many ups and downs. Having completed my PhD –…

    Read more: Looking North

  • Speaking volumes

    This is a ‘before and after’ comparison of two of my three original (1858-60) volumes of the Illustrated News of the World. You’ll see that, for the most damaged volume, it was necessary to have an entirely new…

    Read more: Speaking volumes

  • The end of the beginning…

    It has been a momentous week for me. Four years on from starting my PhD, my thesis has been submitted for examination. What a journey it has been to reach this point. My higher education began at Newcastle…

    Read more: The end of the beginning…