Martin Sheppard founded and ran the distinguished history publisher Hambledon, editing and publishing 300 books by leading historians. Since selling Hambledon, he has himself written or edited six books on London and on family history. Martin lives in Primrose Hill, on the history of which he is the world’s leading expert. He is an ex-Chairman on the Independent Publishers Guild and was part of a Keble College, Oxford, team which lost University Challenge on the last question of the third round of the final.
The great, great, great nephew of General Scarlett, he inherited a family archive which included over forty of the General's unpublished letters. A member of the Crimean War Research Society, he lives in London with his two dogs.