David Buttery has established a reputation as a leading historian of nineteenth-century British military history and the British Empire. He has made a particular study of the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars. He has worked in newspapers and in an oral history archive and has published extensively in many of the leading military history periodicals including the Victorian Military Society's journal, The Leicestershire Chronicle and Military Illustrated. His most recent books are Wellington Against Massena: The Third Invasion of Portugal 1810-1811 and Messenger of Death: Captain Nolan and the Charge of the Light Brigade.
