 He earned an MLitt in fine arts from the Barber Institute, University of Birmingham, where he specialised in the Grand Tour and the collecting of George, 3rd Earl Cowper.Belsey worked at Bowood House in Wiltshire after which he became curator of Gainsborough's House in Sudbury, a position he held for 23 years.He has been a senior research fellow at the Yale Center for British Art during which time he worked upon compiling the "catalogue raisonné" of the portraits by Thomas Gainsborough published in February 2019.