Michael Stedman (historian)


Michael Stedman is a British non-fiction writer.

Career

He graduated from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne after which he became a school teacher in Manchester for 24 years. During the 1980s his first book, The Salford Pals, was published, followed in the early 1990s by The Manchester Pals.
He moved to Worcester in 1994, subsequently devoting his time to many projects most of which centre on the Great War's history. Since 1995 he has written numerous books on the history of the Great War including, Thiepval, La Boisselle, Fricourt, Guillemont and Advance to Victory in the Battleground Europe Series as well as Great Battles of the Great War which accompanied a Tyne Tees / ITV series of the same name.
Between 1999 and 2004 he was, along with Peter Simkins, one of the historical advisors to the Thiepval Project whose visitor centre opened during the autumn of 2004. That work focussed on the development of the display materials including maps and panoramas together with the scripting and production of the films which feature within the centre.
Michael has also worked with the BBC on the dramatic reconstruction of events on the Somme during 1916 - part of which was filmed in the Suffolk area and which portrayed the events which overwhelmed the Salford Pals during their assault on the village of Thiepval on the opening day of the battle.
He is currently developing an innovative DVD history project with Pen & Sword, the first part of which was published in late 2007. Somme 1 July 1916 - An interactive tour of the Southern Somme Battlefield will be published in late 2008. The DVD series will expand into covering other areas and periods of the 1916 and 1918 Somme battlefields and thence to other areas of the Western Front.

Personal life

He is married to a doctor, Yvonne, and has two sons who are a prison governor and a doctor.