Biography
Harold Plenderleith was born in Scotland on 19 September 1898. He studied Chemistry and graduated with a doctorate in Chemistry from University College Dundee. In 1924, he began to work at the British Museum with Dr Alexander Scott in the newly created Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. This department had been created by the museum to address objects in the collection that had begun to rapidly deteriorate as a result of being stored in the London underground railway tunnels during the First 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 of Tutankhamun in Egypt, Sir Leonard Woolley's site at Ur, and the Sutton Hoo ship burial.
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). He was the director of ICCROM until 1971. 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 the ICCROM Award, Rome, 1979.
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