Following National Service in the Royal Navy where he was commissioned, Tim Voelcker took up an Open Scholarship in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge. Honours degree in 1955 and went into educational publishing. Short spell as Outward Bound Seamanship Instructor before becoming a Training Officer in a steelworks in S.Wales. Then 15 years in brewing industry with Ind Coope and later Bass Charrington, ending as Wines & Spirits Marketing Director with their London company. Left to create own small pub and restaurant group which evolved into a wine merchant’s business after some ten years. Sold to management buy-out in 2000, enabling him to commence part-time research for PhD in Naval History at University of Exeter under Professor N.A.M.Rodger, while continuing to work as a Wine Consultant and Lecturer. Thesis subject: “From Post Captain to Diplomat: the transformation of Admiral Sir James Saumarez in the Napoleonic Wars” which has now been extended into a book.
Married with a son and two daughters, Tim lives in Suffolk on edge of North Sea, where he keeps a small sailing cruiser that he has owned for forty years. He continued in Royal Naval Reserve for 35 years: his father and stepfather were both Captains RN. He sailed off Norwegian, Swedish and Danish coasts, and in the Baltic, while researching this book and had earlier made a transatlantic crossing under sail. He speaks French, some Spanish and a little Danish and can read Swedish (slowly).
He is now editing the Saumarez letters with Dr.James Davey for publication by the Navy Records Society.
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