John Radcliffe worked as a solicitor in the City of London for the whole of his professional life. In retirement he turned to biography and in 2016 co-wrote a well received biography of George Lance, the Victorian still-life artist. When a distant cousin gave him the original Henry Radcliffe letters he spent many months attempting to decipher and then transcribe the spidery writing of his forebear with a view to introducing him to a wider public in England as well as in California and Australia. He is married and lives in Islington in north London.