John Taplin spent the majority of his career in management in the telecommunications industry until 2001 when he joined the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust at Hall’s Croft and Nash’s House/New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon, until retiring in 2010. A historian, genealogist and biographer, he has published articles on Shakespeare, his contemporaries and associates in and around Stratford, including the families directly associated with New Place,
Shakespeare’s Stratford home, before and after Shakespeare’s lifetime. In 2011 he published his book Shakespeare’s Country Families - A Documentary Guide to Shakespeare’s Country Society. He was a member of the Advisory Board for the Trust’s Dig for Shakespeare project at New Place between 2010-2015, and in 2018 he published a revised and updated edition of his 2011book. He has a Masters degree in historical studies from the University of Leicester.