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'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''. He has also taken part in a number of other television programmes including a live archaeology programme from Egypt for Channel 5, a series on genealogy which he copresented with Bill Oddie for UKTV History, and occasional appearances on ''Richard and Judy''.

Contents

Family background

Life

Works

References

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, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. In 1997 he discovered that the rebel Romano-British emperor called Carausius (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 began teacher training at Kesteven and Sleaford High School in Lincolnshire on the Graduate Teacher Programme, specialising in teaching Modern History to Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 pupils.
He is married to Rosemary de la Bédoyère, who is also a history teacher. They have four sons.

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.

References

★ Guy de la Bédoyère's website on Roman Britain

★ Time Team biography