Matthew’s research has explored the history of masculinity in Britain since 1700. He has studied what it meant to be a man in ‘public’ contexts such as politics and the military, and in particular its implications for citizenship. He examined this in the books The Independent Man: Citizenship and Gender Politics in Georgian England (2005), Embodying the Militia in Georgian England (2015) and Citizenship and Gender in Britain, 1688-1928 (2019).
His current work focuses on gender in relation to the body and material culture. He explored this theme in relation to footwear in Shoes and the Georgian Man (2025).
Matthew also conducts pedagogical research, and co-edited (with Ruth Larsen and Alice Marples), Innovations in Teaching History: Eighteenth-Century Studies in Higher Education (2024).
Matthew edited Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2015-20) and is President of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
