David is Mercian Heritage Research’s chief executive. He is a heritage and a human rights lawyer.
His hobbies include photography and gardening. He enjoys listening to traditional English folk songs, exploring heritage towns, visiting industrial museums and watching 1940s movies. His favourite films are The First of the Few, North West Passage and First Comes Courage.
David took his A levels at Stoke-on-Trent College of Commerce. He studied law and history at the London School of Economics. He wrote his thesis on local government in the Potteries.
David studied art history at Stoke-on-Trent College of Art. He was a member of the college’s photographic club and photographed the Potteries in the swinging sixties. Between 1963 and 1967, he took over 5,000 slides, which he gave to the college.
David met his late wife, Betty, a historical geographer, in Tunstall.
Betty was researching the history of Forster Street School, where her brother, Neil, was headteacher, and David was photographing the site of Tunstall Court Leet, an Anglo-Saxon Territorial Court. The court tried criminal offences committed in Kidsgrove, Mow Cop, Harriseahead, Brindley Ford, Newchapel, Chell, Goldenhill, Tunstall, Burslem and Cobridge.
(Revised June 2026)
Mercian Heritage Research 