Professor Matthew Kelly

Professor

School: Humanities and Social Sciences

Matthew Kelly is Professor of Modern History in the Department of Humanities. He works on modern British history, focusing on the development of environmental policy in the post-war period, the cultural history of landscape, and the history of National Parks and nature conservation.

Matthew joined Northumbria in 2016 as a professor. Between 2006 and 2016, he was a lecturer and then associate professor at the University of Southampton, and between 2003 and 2006 he was a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. In 2012-13, he was a Fellow of the Rachel Carson Center, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich and in 2016 he was a Visiting Researcher at St. John’s College, Oxford for Michaelmas term.

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Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Protecting the Countryside: The First Century of CPRE, Kelly, M. 2 Jul 2026
Bearing Witness: Ruth Harrison and British Farm Animal Welfare (1920–2000), by Claas Kirchhelle, Kelly, M. 2024, In: The English Historical Review
Introduction, Ross, L., Navickas, K., Kelly, M., Anderson, B. 8 Jun 2023, New Lives, New Landscapes Revisited, Oxford, Oxford University Press
New Lives, New Landscapes Revisited: Rural Modernity in Britain, Ross, L., Navickas, K., Anderson, B., Kelly, M. 8 Jun 2023
Richard Bourke and Niamh Gallagher (eds), The Political Thought of the Irish Revolution, Kelly, M. 1 Dec 2023, In: Twentieth Century British History
The Line of the Pylons, Kelly, M. 1 Aug 2023, Decommissioning the Twentieth Century, Axminster, Uniformbooks
The Politics of the British Environment since 1945, Kelly, M. 8 Jun 2023, In: Political Quarterly
What Happens When Rural Modernity Ceases to be Modern?, Anderson, B., Kelly, M. 8 Jun 2023, New Lives New Landscapes Revisited, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Habitat Protection, Ideology and the British Nature State: The Politics of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Kelly, M. 1 Jun 2022, In: The English Historical Review
The Women Who Saved the English Countryside, Kelly, M. 12 Apr 2022

Current and Recent Projects

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Enchantment and Affect in the Borderscapes of Britain and Ireland, c.1880-1979, Roddy, G. (Principal Investigator), Kelly, M. (Co Investigator), The Leverhulme Trust, 01/09/20 - 31/08/23, £75,000.00

PGR Supervision

Louis Holland Bonnett The Natural Habitat of Youth? The Relationship between Childhoods and the Environment in North-East England, 1980-2010 Start Date: 01/10/2020 End Date: 17/10/2025
Nicholas Pepper Preserving Thirlwall Castle: Policy, Practice, and the History of Northumberland National Park, 1956-2002 Start Date: 01/10/2020 End Date: 02/04/2026
Louis Holland Bonnett The Natural Habitat of Youth? The Relationship between Childhoods and the Environment in North-East England, 1980-2010 Start Date: 01/10/2020 End Date: 24/12/2025
Nicholas Pepper Preserving Thirlwall Castle: Policy, Practice, and the History of Northumberland National Park, 1956-2002 Start Date: 01/10/2020 End Date: 17/10/2025