Michael John Partington holds a BA (Honours) in History and an MA in History of Art (British and Irish) from the University of Nottingham, a Diploma in History of Art (Renaissance and Baroque) from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Arts and Culture (Art, Architecture, and Interior before 1800) from Leiden University. His research interests lie in British and Irish and early modern art and architecture. He has worked as a tour guide at Speyer, Canterbury and Florence cathedrals, as a research assistant for English Heritage, as a researcher and writer for the classic cultural guide book series Blue Guides, and has taught as an instructor in history and history of art at the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) based at the University of Ferrara, Italy. He works as a volunteer print cataloguer on the portrait print collection of the naturalist, collector and entomologist William Frederick Hope (1797–1862) housed at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.