Career
He joined the Museum in 1973 after he investigated, as a police officer, the theft of items from the philatelic collections by James Mackay. In the mid 1980s he took an active part in tracking down forgeries of classic stamps made by Pro-Phila Forum in Germany based on photographs taken by a visitor to the Library. Schoolley-West retired in 1991 and was succeeded at the British Library by his former assistant, David Beech.