Joseph Boughey is one of Britain's leading living waterways historians, co-author of British Canals: The Standard History. He taught estate management and environmental management and planning at Liverpool John Moores University until 2010. He has written for the Journal of Transport History, the Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society and the Waterways Journal, for which he was on the editorial board. He was a Council member of the Railway and Canal Historical Society, and a Trustee of the Raymond Williams Foundation. He has spoken about Rolt on television and was ‘canal consultant’ for the series Canals: The Making of A Nation. Since 2013, he has had a regular column in Narrowboat magazine.