Harold James PlenderleithMCFRSE FCS (19 September 1898 – 2 November 1997) was a 20th century Scottish artconservator andarchaeologist.[1] He was a large and jovial character with a strong Dundonian accent.
Harold Plenderleith was born inCoatbridge[2] on 19 September 1898.[3] He was the eldest child of Robert James Plenderleith who was art master atHarris Academy inDundee and Harold was consequently educated there, also being schooldux.[4] His younger brother wasRobert Waldron PlenderleithFRSE.
He then joined University College in St Andrews in 1916 but after two terms went to officer training school due to theFirst World War becoming a Lieutenant in theLancashire Fusiliers in 1917. He served on the Western Front from August 1917. He received a shrapnel wound in the arm on theYpres Salient. He was awarded theMilitary Cross in 1918 for a successful night raid on a German pillbox.[5]
In 1919 he then returned to studyChemistry atUniversity College, Dundee and graduated with a BSc in 1921 and gained his doctorate in 1923.[6] In 1924, he began to work at theBritish Museum withAlexander Scott in the newly created Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.[7] This department had been created by the museum to address objects in thecollection that had begun to rapidly deteriorate as a result of being stored in theLondon Underground railway tunnels during theFirst World War. Scott and Plenderleith began applying their knowledge of Chemistry to the deterioration of museum objects and began scientific conservation in the United Kingdom. As an archaeologist he was involved in the excavations of the tomb ofTutankhamun in Egypt,Sir Leonard Woolley's site at Ur, and theSutton Hoo ship burial.
In 1934 he was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Alexander Scott,Arthur Pillans Laurie,Sir James Irvine andWilliam Peddie.[8]
In theSecond World War he worked with SirJohn Forsdyke on the relocation of precious artefacts from the British Museum into mines and quarries in Wales to avoid bomb damage. On the night of 10-11 May 1941 when the British Museum was bombed, he crawled "like a snake" into a burning book storage area to investigate the damage.[9]
Plenderleith retired from the British Museum in 1959 to become the first director of the International Center for the study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM).[10] He was the director of ICCROM until 1971. He helped set up and then served on the Council of theInternational Institute for Conservation from its creation in 1950 until 1971 and was IIC's President from 1965 to 1968.He received many medals throughout his career, including: the Gold Medal of the Society of Antiquaries in 1964; Unesco Bronze Medal, 1971; the Conservation Service Award of the U.S. Department of the Interior, 1976 and theICCROM Award, Rome, 1979.
He died inInverness on 2 November 1997 aged 99.
He was married twice. Firstly (and for over 50 years) he was married in 1926 to Elizabeth K S Smyth. Following Elizabeth's death in 1982, in 1988, aged 90, he married Margaret MacLennan (nee MacLeod). He had four stepchildren by his second marriage but no biological children by either marriage.
Since Plenderleith's death, theScottish Society for Conservation and Restoration (SSCR) have organised an annual Plenderleith Memorial Lecture, the SSCR merged with several other organizations in 2005 to form theInstitute of Conservation, and today the lecture continues annually under the auspices of the Committee of theIcon Scotland Group.[11]
