Guy de la Bédoyère

Guy Martyn Thorold Huchet de la Bédoyère is a British historian, who has published widely on Roman Britain and other subjects, and has appeared regularly on the Channel 4 archaeological television series, "Time Team". In 1999 he presented a three-part series called "The Romans in Britain" for BBC2, produced by the Open University. He has also taken part in a number of other television programmes including a live archaeology programme from Egypt in 2004 and a live programme from Pompeii in 2006 for Channel 5, a 2006 series on genealogy which he copresented with Bill Oddie for UKTV History, and occasional appearances on "Richard and Judy".

Family background

Despite his French surname, de la Bédoyère's father's ancestry is mostly English, Anglo-Irish and Scottish, with a large part belonging to the ancient Lincolnshire family of Thorold baronets as well as the dukes of Manchester and the earls of Salisbury. His great-great-grandfather was Anthony Wilson Thorold, Lord Bishop of Winchester. One of his male-line ancestors was the cousin of Charles de la Bédoyère, Napoleon 's aide-de-camp at Waterloo in 1815. His grandfather, Michael de la Bédoyère, was the editor of the "Catholic Herald" for approximately 30 years. He is a second cousin of Richard Gough, the former captain of Glasgow Rangers and Scotland.

Life

Guy de la Bédoyère was born in Wimbledon in November 1957, the eldest of five children. He was educated at King's College School, Wimbledon and Wimbledon College. He took an archaeology and history degree at Collingwood College, Durham in 1980, part of Durham University with a subsidiary paper in Egyptology, a modern history degree at the University of London in 1985, and an MA in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, now part of University College London, in 1987. From 1981 to 1998 he worked for most of the time as a sound engineer for BBC Radio News at Bush House and Broadcasting House in London. In 1998 he became a fulltime freelance writer and broadcaster.

His special interests apart from the Roman Empire and Roman Britain include coinage (ancient and modern), and the writings of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn. He is a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and a Fellow of the Historical Association. In 1997 he discovered that the rebel Romano-British emperor called Carausius (AD 286–293) had placed explicit reference to lines from poetry by the poet Virgil on his coins, considered a major discovery in the history of the period.

His other interests include travelling in the United States, playing the piano (with a particular fondness for the showtunes of the 1930s and 1940s especially Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter), genealogy, and the history of the Second World War.

In 2007 de la Bédoyère gave up fulltime freelance work as a writer and broadcaster and now teaches at Kesteven and Sleaford High School in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, after training on the Graduate Teacher Programme, specialising in teaching Modern History and Classical Civilisation. However, he has continued to take part occasionally in "Time Team" and other television shoots as well as giving lectures.

He is married to Rosemary de la Bédoyère, who is also a history teacher at Kesteven and Sleaford High School. They have four sons - Hugh, Thomas, Robert and William. Hugh is the manager and in-house producer of the [http://www.canalcafetheatre.com Canal Cafe Theatre] , home of Newsrevue, the Guinness world record holder for longest running live sketch comedy.

Works

De la Bédoyère has published books on a diverse range of subjects. These include:
*a number of publications on Roman history for English Heritage;
*a book on the archaeology of aviation of the Second World War (for which he took a private pilot's licence at Biggin Hill);
*an edition of the correspondence between the diarists Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn;
*an edition of Samuel Pepys's other letters;
*"The Home Front",
*"The History of Computers",
*"The First Polio Vaccine", and
*"The Discovery of Penicillin" in a series of educational science history books; and
* In 2006 he produced "The Romans For Dummies" in the popular For Dummies series.

He is an occasional correspondent to "Current Archaeology" magazine, and also writes regularly for genealogy magazines such as "Practical Family History".

Selected works:
* "Particular Friends. The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn", Boydell (2nd edition 2005). ISBN 1843831341.
* "The Diary of John Evelyn", Boydell, Woodbridge, 1995. ISBN 0851156398
* "The Letters of Samuel Pepys", Boydell, Woodbridge, 2006. ISBN 184383197X.
* "The Finds of Roman Britain", Batsford, London 1988. ISBN 0713460822.
* "The Buildings of Roman Britain", Batsford, London 1991, now reprinted by Tempus, Stroud, 2001 as a revised second edition. ISBN 0752419064.
* "A Companion to Roman Britain", Tempus, Stroud, 1999. ISBN 0752414577.
* "Eagles over Britannia. The Roman Army in Britain", Tempus, Stroud, 2001. ISBN 0752419234.
* "Roman Towns in Britain", Tempus, 2003. ISBN 0752429191.
* "Architecture in Roman Britain", Shire Archaeology no. 66, 2002. ISBN 0747803536.

ee also

*Michael de la Bédoyère
*Anthony Wilson Thorold

References

* [http://www.romanbritain.freeserve.co.uk/ Guy de la Bédoyère's website on Roman Britain]
* [http://www.channel4.com/history/timeteam/biog_guy.html Time Team biography]