The late Melvyn Jones was a local and landscape historian. On his retirement, after a teaching career in higher education of nearly forty years, he was appointed Visiting Professor in Landscape History at Sheffield Hallam University in 1999. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of South Yorkshire, including The Making of the South Yorkshire Landscape (2000); The Making of Sheffield (2004) and South Yorkshire Mining Villages (2017) all for Pen & Sword Books.