Nick Tilley: The Wizard of Whitby

This chapter offers an overview of Nick’s career and the book. The first section is a portrait miniature divided into three broad time periods. The first is the Early Years, spent largely at Lanchester Polytechnic studying the work of Karl Popper. The second is the 1990s when Nick, formally working at Nottingham Trent University, was seconded to the Home Office to work on situational crime prevention and problem-oriented policing. The third section covers the 2000s, when Nick has been located at University College London and influential in the development of crime science. We identify key intellectual influences and direction of travel within each period. In the second section we consider some of the substantive areas in which Nick’s work has been particularly influential. This covers realistic evaluation, problem-oriented policing and the international crime drop. We then outline the motivation for and contents of this book. The selected photographs at the end of this chapter illustrate how Nick’s personal and professional life are wholly integrated.