Sheils is a specialist in the early modern religious and social history of Britain.
Religious Identities and Confessional Relations in Early Modern England - Essays in Honour of Professor W. J. Sheils (St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History, Ashgate, 2012), edited by Adam Morton and Nadine Lewycky.
[2] His work focuses on the religious and social history of Great Britain and Ireland in the post-Reformation period, with particular emphasis on local context and inter-demonitional relations.
[2][3] He has served as Chair of the editorial board of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2015-2019, and as Chair of Council of The Catholic Record Society 2018-2021 Bill is married to Sarah, née Maidlow-Davis, and they have four children; Lucy, Eleanor, Thomas and Richard.
Sheils is a parishioner of St Aelred's in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough.