Christian Wellard

Christian Wellard is Curatorial Assistant (Firearms) at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

Whilst completing a degree in History (BA Hons, University of Reading 2014-2017), Christian began volunteering at a local museum before moving to IWM Duxford as a Collections Assistant. He held this post for a year, joining the Royal Armouries as Curatorial Assistant in 2019.

Christian’s research interests centre around military firearms of the late-19th and 20th centuries, with current emphasis on British self-loading rifle trials and the development of early infra-red night vision optics for small arms. Outside of firearms he also has a strong interest in Britain’s conflicts of the early Cold War such as Korea, Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus.

As a result of his military interests Christian Wellard has given lectures on the history of the British service rifle to the British Army. He also currently writes the ‘Technical Tuesday’ feature for the Royal Armouries’ social media, and occasionally contributes pieces to The Field magazine highlighting objects in the Royal Armouries collection.