Author on the Potteries

David W. Smith has Bevington genes. His Great Grand Mother was Mary Elsie Bevington. David has been researching his family history for 35 years, starting with the Stephens family and moving to Victorian Potters and the Bevington branch in 2008, when he first visited Stoke-on-Trent. A Fleming Scholar at Rugby School, he graduated in Business Economics from the University of Hull. After graduating, he joined Thompson McLintock & Co. in 1983 in London, where he trained as a Chartered Accountant. On qualifying, he worked as a Management Accountant for Associated Newspapers, Safeway, and Booker Cash and Carry where he was Deputy Finance Director. In 1996, after a company reorganisation forced a change in sector, he set up his own recruitment business in the young, fast-growing, computer games industry, where his prior commercial and life experience proved to be an asset. In 2012, he wrote a Best Practice Guide on Recruitment and Selection for game developers, which was published by the sector’s trade association. In 2015, the Institute of Recruitment Professionals awarded him an Honorary Fellowship, one of only 20 recipients in an industry of over 10000 in the UK. Surprised by the lack of women joining and succeeding in the sector, he founded a not-for-profit organisation, Women in Games in 2009, which included an Ambassador Programme which has grown worldwide to be represented in 52 different countries. Now semi-retired from the computer games industry, this is his first commercial publication, and he welcomes feedback. More information at https://potteriesauthor.com/