Dr Matt Cole

BA, MA, PGCE, PhD

I studied as an undergraduate and postgraduate at the University of York, and gained my doctorate from the University of Birmingham in 2006. I have taught and researched with the Open University (1990-2001) and for the Hansard Society in association with the London School of Economics (2006-12) as well as teaching at the University of Birmingham since 2000. I have throughout this period worked in 16-19 education and for the BBC as a current affairs commentator.

• Deputy Convenor of the MA in West Midlands History
• Undergraduate Dissertation supervisor

British Liberal and Liberal Democrat Party history, liberal political thought and modern party politics and constitutional affairs more generally.
Regional social, economic, political and cultural history of the West Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

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Find out more - our PhD History  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

As a Morrell Scholar at the University of York between 1984 and 1987 I examined the relationship between the work of John Stuart Mill and the arguments used to support campaigns to widen the franchise in nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain.

I was awarded a Research Associateship of the Open University between 1998 and 2001 to examine the determinants of British parties’ attitudes to constitutional reform, and was awarded the PSA’s David Butler Prize in 1998 for research on policy towards electoral reform.

Between 2007 and 2011 the Scurrah Wainwright Trust funded my research into the history of the Liberal Party in the twentieth century, particularly to produce a biography of Richard Wainwright, former MP for the Colne Valley.

Between 2014 and 2016 I carried out a study supported by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust of the impact of participation in the coalition government on Liberal Democrat MPs’ campaigns in twelve constituencies. The findings were published as ‘Liberalism in Power: Watching the Titanic (Birmingham 2016; PDF - 1.55Mb)

In 2019-20 I held a Research Fellowship as Historian of the University, commissioned to investigate and publicise UoB's development for its 120th anniversary.

• Visiting Fellow, Hansard Society
• Political Analyst, BBC Radio West Midlands
• Editorial Board member, Journal of Liberal History
• Regular contributor of papers at conferences of the Political Studies Association, its Elections, Public Opinion and Parties Specialist Group and the British Liberal Political Studies Group.
• During 2021-22 I co-ordinated the 'Pathfinders' project in which eighty students researched and delivered biographies of medal-winning past Team England athletes who had suffered discrimination because of ethnicity, sex, sexuality or disability as inspirational material for the Team England competitors at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.