Tim Voelcker

Following National Service in the Royal Navy where he was commissioned, Tim Voelcker took up an Open Scholarship in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge and achieved an Honours degree in 1955 and went into educational publishing. After a short spell as Outward Bound Seamanship Instructor he became a Training Officer in a steelworks in S.Wales. He then spent 15 years in the brewing industry. In 2000 he commenced part-time research for a PhD in Naval History at University of Exeter under Professor N.A.M.Rodger, while continuing to work as a Wine Consultant and Lecturer. Thesis subject: "From Post Captain to Diplomat: the transformation of Admiral Sir James Saumarez in the Napoleonic Wars" which has now been extended into a book.

Married with a son and two daughters, Tim lives in Suffolk on edge of North Sea, where he keeps a small sailing cruiser that he has owned for forty years. He continued in Royal Naval Reserve for 35 years. He sailed off the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish coasts, and in the Baltic, while researching this book and had earlier made a transatlantic crossing under sail.