The archaeological conservator Mike Corfield, who has died aged 81, helped form his career and raised its profile in lots of heritage organisations. He was a part of that first technology of conservators who stepped away from the skilful however simple mending and cleansing of antiquities to embrace a extra considerate moral strategy, figuring out and preserving the proof sought by trendy archaeology.
As head of conservation and know-how at English Heritage from 1991, he suggested on the preservation of the stays of the Rose theatre, in Bankside, London. There was important public curiosity and appreciable strain from high-profile members of the performing career to protect the stays of this Elizabethan theatre, which was as a result of be buried when a big new workplace block was constructed.
As English Heritage lacked the funds to forestall growth, Mike with others helped engineer an answer by which nearly all the unique stays have been preserved within the waterlogged situations they should survive, with the brand new constructing suspended on pile foundations above them to allow them to nonetheless be accessed.
With the preservation of stays in situ now a wider concern, Mike was instrumental in arranging funding for analysis, establishing the strategy of sub-surface monitoring, instituting in 1996 a collection of Preservation of Archaeological Stays in Situ (Paris) conferences, and contributing to publications on this theme. Such was his pivotal position on this space, he was thought-about the godfather of preservation in situ within the UK.
Later, he was confronted with the challenges of Seahenge, the primary prehistoric henge with surviving wood posts to be found in Britain, which was uncovered by shifting sands and tides on the foreshore at Holme-next-the-Sea, close to Previous Hunstanton, Norfolk, in 1998. It was being eroded by the ocean, and a variety of vociferously expressed views, from pagans, native individuals and others, made reaching selections on one of the simplest ways to cope with the location tough. Mike, pragmatic and diplomatic as ever, worke d with colleagues to organise the lifting and conservation of the wood posts, a few of which will be seen at Lynn Museum, and had been a part of the British Museum’s The World of Stonehenge exhibition in 2022.
Born in Rustington, Sussex, to Dorothy (nee Hencke) and Christopher Corfield, Mike spent his early childhood years in Tripoli, the place his father, a physician within the British military, was stationed. Returning to Britain in 1953, Mike was educated at Worthing highschool, however left at 16 to affix the military, the place he labored with radar and guided missiles earlier than turning into a pharmacist.
After marrying Sheila Bates in 1963 and leaving the military, Mike joined the Historic Monuments Laboratory (then a part of the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, now English Heritage) as a trainee conservator, attaining a diploma within the conservation of archaeological supplies from the Institute of Archaeology, London, in 1973.
He was then appointed conservation officer for Wiltshire (1973-86), the place he arrange the county’s first archaeological conservation laboratory for Wiltshire Library and Museum Service, initially in Trowbridge, later relocated to Salisbury. The Wiltshire lab is fondly remembered by all of the conservation college students who had industrial placements there as a contented and industrious place. Mike was an excellent mentor – all the time affected person, glad to speak concepts and encourage his placement college students. He performed a key half in founding the UK’s first skilled conservation physique, UKIC, in 1977 (now Icon, the Institute of Conservation), and was its chair within the late 80s.
In 1985 a Bronze Age gold foil lozenge from Bush Barrow, a part of the Stonehenge complicated, which had been on mortgage to the British Museum since 1922, was reshaped and given a clear and reflective look by the BM conservators. The homeowners of this object, the Wiltshire Archaeological and Pure Historical past Society, had been shocked by this therapy, eliminated it and undertook additional analysis that recommended a barely completely different unique look. The completely different approaches to the conservation work had been printed within the journal Antiquity (1988).
Mike, as chair of UKIC, identified that the lozenge’s boring and crumpled look might have been the way it was deposited within the grave – a part of the article’s historical past that had now been without end misplaced by the British Museum’s work. This debate was important in emphasising the necessity for proof of unique look earlier than metallic objects are reshaped.
In 1986 Mike turned senior archaeological conservator, then head of conservation, on the Nationwide Museum of Wales, Cardiff, the place, involved in regards to the care of collections exterior his typical remit of archaeology, he secured funding to recruit conservators in areas reminiscent of geology and botany. Across the similar time, he was requested to affix a Science Museum working group to develop conservation approaches to their scientific and industrial collections.
Following his appointment at English Heritage, he helped set up the York Archaeological Wooden Centre in 1993. He turned head of English Heritage’s Historic Monuments Laboratory in 1995, overseeing its transfer to Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth, in 1998, and in 1999 turned its first chief scientist. He additionally broadened the English Heritage strategy to conservation, transferring away from specialist groups merely coping with archaeological artefacts, wall-paintings and oil work, to cowl the complete vary of artefacts owned or managed by English Heritage (now Historic England).
Mike might see the larger image and that the world of developer-funded archaeology was upon us. To make sure that this business world might benefit from the conservators, supplies analysts, environmental archaeologists and geophysicists in universities across the nation, he developed a collection of regional science advisor posts. These proceed to be a necessary nationwide useful resource, guaranteeing that archaeologists scientifically get well and document the traditional previous; its artefacts, and its proof.
He printed quite a few articles on many facets of conservation, preservation in situ and historic know-how, was on the editorial boards of assorted journals, a trustee or on advisory boards of various heritage initiatives and organisations, and served as an exterior examiner at college conservation programs together with Cardiff, Durham, West Dean (Sussex College) and the Institute of Archaeology. He was as efficient in a committee as utilizing a scalpel.
After retiring in 2002, Mike was a guide advising Unesco on conservation of wall work in Ajanta and Ellora (in India) and earthquake harm in Bam (in Iran).
In 2016 Mike was recognized with Alzheimer’s. Slowly he misplaced contact with the world and those that knew him misplaced a valued buddy and colleague.
Sheila died in 2023. They’re survived by a son, John, two daughters, Barbara and Christine, and 5 grandchildren, Thomas, Jack, William, Adam and Luke.
