Jane Rees has had a long-term interest in the history of tools and trades. She trained as an architect and ran her own practice specializing in the restoration and renovation of historic buildings. This developed an interest in traditional construction techniques and tools used in centuries past.

After retiring as an architect in 1991, this interest became the main focus of her life, and she researched and wrote about numerous aspects of historic tools and trades. With her late husband, Mark, she wrote a number of books including the third edition of British Planemakers;Tools, A Guide for Collectors;Christopher Gabriel and the Tool Trade in 18th Century London; and The Rule Book, as well as reprints of the 1787 Sheffield Directory and the nineteenth-century Catalogue ofJames, Isaac and John Fussell.

She is president of the Tools and Trades History Society in Britain and for many years was editor of its newsletter and journal, as well as editor of TheTool Chest of Benjamin Seaton, 1797. She is a long-time member of the Early American Industries Association and in 2006, wrote A Pattern Book of Tools and Household Goods, a reprint of an 1820 pattern book. She has been a regular presenter at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's annual symposium Working Wood in the 18th Century. When not writing and researching the history of tools and technology, she is a successful wildlife photographer and is an Associate of The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain. She lives in Bath, UK, and her website can be found at www.reestools.co.uk