Sussex Military Research was formed by Stewart Angell and Peter Hibbs to promote and raise awareness in all aspects of military history relating to the county of Sussex, including associated archaeology. Exploring opportunities to encourage community involvement, promote heritage and protect historic sites of interest.
Stewart is currently working in archaeology where his experience of fieldwork and excavation since the 1970's ranges from prehistoric through to world war military sites. He acts as a specialist advisor regarding research and military aspects relating to Sussex, particularly underground sites.
He has written extensively on the Home Guard Auxiliary Unit patrols of the Second World War throughout Sussex, contributing to websites, books, magazines along with supporting images and his book The Secret Sussex Resistance (1996) is recognised as a definitive piece of research.
He is a committee member of Sussex Military History Society, Hastings Area Archaeological Research Group and a long-time member of underground exploration group Subterranea Britannica and the Council for British Archaeology South-East.
Pete has had a keen interest in history from childhood. His love of both Sussex's rich past and general military history combined in 1987 while exploring the Crumbles prior to the construction of Eastbourne's Sovereign Harbour. It was here that his first research project, the Napoleonic Martello Towers of Kent and Sussex, was born, along with a love of wildlife and landscape photography. His pursuit of history as an academic discipline saw him attain both GCSE and A-level qualifications before graduating with a BA (Hons) 2:1 in War Studies with History in 1997.
After several years with the East Sussex County Library Service, Pete moved into web development and worked in the education sector, simultaneously achieving an MSc (with distinction) in Web Information Management in 2011. Having established his personal research as the Defence of East Sussex Project (www.pillbox.org.uk) back in 2006, the combination of history and ICT qualifications has resulted in a database of over 250,000 records pertaining to East Sussex during the Second World War.
A former committee member of Sussex Military History Society, Pete co-founded Sussex Military Research with Stewart Angell in 2018. Aside from SussexMR, Pete undertakes freelance web development and historical consultancy work on wartime Sussex. He is currently writing a book on the Rye area during the Second World War.