Since 2014, Richard has assisted with the Philatelic Collection’s front and back of house services and operations. He began his career at the Royal Household before being employed by the British Library in 2004 as a Curator for the Pre-1858 India Office Records. Richard has lectured and presented in the United Kingdom, Germany, China and the United States on a wide variety of subjects including history, philately, paper money, sigillography and numismatics. His interests also cover postal-history, stamp design, cultural history, colonial history, the East India Company, Anglo-Chinese Relations, the history of collecting, visual-material culture and archival theory. He has written numerous articles for academic journals and magazines. In 2020, he was awarded the Tapling Medal for his article on the design of the India 1852 Half Anna Red ‘Scinde Dawk'. He has authored many blogs, particularly on the British Library's Untold Lives and Asian and African Studies blog sites. He is a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London and a member of the American Philatelic Society and the International Banknote Society. He has served on the councils of the Royal Numismatic Society and the Royal Philatelic Society, London and was a member of the Royal Philatelic Society’s Library Committee.