A graduate of London University, Dr Nick Sign has enjoyed a long teaching career in High Schools as a department head and Deputy Headmaster, at a College of Education in Lincolnshire and more recently until his retirement in 2008 as a lecturer and degree course joint leader at Suffolk College, now University Campus Suffolk. His research interests include the history of education in the seventeenth century, investigated for his M.Phil, the use of archives in history teaching and the introduction of state secondary education to Suffolk between 1900 and 1939, which he studied for his Ph.D., under Professor Michael Sanderson at the University of East Anglia. He has also contributed a chapter on the development of further education in Suffolk to a forthcoming history of Suffolk College. He is currently a member of council of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History and is a former chairman of the Mendlesham History Group, which has published three booklets on the village's history. As the Vice-Chairman of the Suffolk Local History Council and Hon. Editor of their journal, Suffolk Review he has worked with Dr Thomas to develop and deliver courses in local history sources and methods for societies affiliated to the SLHC. He also gives lectures to local history groups throughout the county and has given illustrated talks and courses at Suffolk Record Office and in the Ipswich Arts Association's Town Lectures series.
