12 Facts About Bill Sheils

William J Sheils, known as Bill Sheils, is professor emeritus in history at the University of York and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Bill Sheils was educated at the William Ellis School, North London, and earned his BA at York, and his PhD at King's College, London.

Bill Sheils first worked on the Victoria County History in Gloucestershire before joining the University of York as an archivist at the Borthwick Institute in 1973 where he worked on the post-medieval collections until 1988.

Bill Sheils then taught nineteenth- and twentieth-century social and economic history, and subsequently early modern religious and social history with a specialism in Britain.

Bill Sheils retired from teaching in 2011 to become a full-time researcher.

Bill Sheils has written extensively for the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, as well as contributing to the Economic History Review, The Sixteenth Century Journal, and Northern History.

Bill Sheils's work focuses on the religious and social history of Great Britain and Ireland in the post-Reformation period, with particular emphasis on local context and inter-demonitional relations.

Bill Sheils has written extensively on the history of York and Yorkshire since 1500.

Bill Sheils was Provost of Goodricke College from 1983 to 1995, and was Head of Department of History from 2008 to 2011 prior to his retirement.

Bill Sheils is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a former president of the Ecclesiastical History Society.

Bill Sheils is married to Sarah, nee Maidlow-Davis, and they have four children; Lucy, Eleanor, Thomas and Richard.

Bill Sheils is a parishioner of St Aelred's in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough.