Sciheritagecomplete
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
King’s Research Portal Link to publication record in King's Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): Kandiah, M. D., & Cassar, M. (2014). Development of Science and Research applied to Cultural Heritage, 1947- 2007. Institute of Contemporary British History. Citing this paper Please note that where the full-text provided on King's Research Portal is the Author Accepted Manuscript or Post-Print version this may differ from the final Published version. If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognize and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. •Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. •You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain •You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the Research Portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 28. Sep. 2021 Development of Science and Research applied to Cultural Heritage, 1947-2007 Edited by May Cassar Michael D. Kandiah AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme ICBH Witness Seminar Programme Development of Science and Research applied to Cultural Heritage, 1947-2007 AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme Programme Director: Professor May Cassar, University College London ICBH Witness Seminar Programme Programme Director: Dr Michael Kandiah, King’s College London © Institute of Contemporary British History and AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme, 2014 All rights reserved. This material is made available for use for personal research and study. We give permission for the entire files to be downloaded to your computer for such personal use only. For reproduction or further distribution of all or part of the file (except as constitutes fair dealing), permission must be sought from ICBH. Published by Institute of Contemporary British History Kings College London Strand London WC2R 2LS ISBN: 978-1-910049-05-1 Acknowledgements The Science and Heritage Programme would like to thank all participants, Witnesses, Seminar Chairs and Speakers for agreeing to take part in these seminars. Thanks are also due to those who provided material and information for both the seminars and for this publication, to the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for supporting the Programme and to Virginia Preston and Debbie Williams for preparing this manuscript for publication. Development of Science and Research applied to Cultural Heritage, 1947-2007 Four witness seminars held at University College London 8th-9th December 2010 AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme Institute of Contemporary British History Contents Organising partners 6 What is a witness seminar? 7 Aims of Science and Heritage 8 Glossary 9 Background paper: Science and Heritage: Strategies for surviving turbulent times, May Cassar 10 Seminar I: How Have Concepts of Time and Change Matured? 17 Participants 18 Chronology 19 Introductory paper, Carl Heron 20 Questions for consideration 25 Seminar transcript 26 Seminar II: How Has the Emergence of Heritage Science Come About? 59 Participants 60 Chronology 62 Introductory paper, David Saunders 64 Questions for consideration 71 Seminar transcript 72 Seminar III: How Has Our Use of Evidence Changed? 106 Participants 107 Chronology 109 Introductory paper, Nancy Bell 113 Questions for consideration 118 Seminar transcript 119 Seminar IV: How Has the Way We Work Been Transformed? 154 Participants 155 Chronology 157 Introductory paper, John Fidler 161 Questions for consideration 174 Seminar transcript 175 Annexes 212 Annex I F.A.I.C. Oral History Interviews A.E.A. Werner (1911-2006) 213 Harold Plenderleith (1898-1997) 224 Annex II Reflections on Conservation Research in Scotland 267 – Historic Perspective 1984-2008 Ingval Maxwell Annex III Obituaries 273 Norman Bromelle 274 A.D. Baynes-Cope 276 Sir Bernard Feilden 278 Professor H.W.M. Hodges 280 Harold Plenderleith 282 Professor Edward Hall 285 Joyce Plesters 288 Westby Percival-Prescott 290 Garry Thomson 293 Tony Werner 295 6 Organising Partners AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme The Science and Heritage Programme is a seven-year strategic research Programme funded jointly by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the United Kingdom. Established in 2007 to fund research activities that will deepen understanding and widen participation in research in the field of science and heritage, the Programme aims to strengthen and develop interdisciplinary research, increase the number of researchers in the field and communicate new knowledge to policy makers, practitioners and the public. Professor May Cassar is Director of the AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme. The Institute of Contemporary British History (ICBH) at King’s College London and the Witness Seminar Programme Founded in 1986, ICBH is one of the UK’s leading institutions for the promotion of the study of Britain’s recent past. The Witness Seminar Programme has organised around 100 witness seminars – which are best described as group interviews – on a variety of topics ranging from the Falklands War, the resistance to the Poll Tax, the failure of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 and the Friends of the Nunhead Cemetery, an examination of community activism. ICBH Witness Seminars are widely acknowledged by historians, academics in other disciplines and practitioners as important study and research tools. Dr Michael Kandiah is Director of the Witness Seminar Programme, ICBH at King’s College London. 7 What is a Witness Seminar Michael D. Kandiah • It is an exercise in oral history that may be best described as a group interview or a guided discussion. • Key participants meet around the seminar table to discuss and debate the issues relating to the chosen topic as they remember them. As a group interview, the discussion: o is guided and, where necessary, limited by the Chair, who is usually but not always an academic; and o will be shaped the ‘group dynamic’: individual speakers will respond to each other, to the Chair and the presence of the audience. • Some academics are keen on observing and analysing this group effect, which has been identified as ‘a kind of “chaining” or “cascading” effect; talk links to, or tumbles out of, the topics and expressions preceding it’ (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002). • It shares certain similarities with a focus group, insofar as they are both considered group discussions or interviews. However, this is where the similarity ends. Participants in witness seminars are chosen for their role in, or ability to comment about, the subject of the witness seminar and they are not anonymous—indeed it is essential to know who they are to properly understand and analyse their testimony. Additionally, individuals in the group generally know each other, which makes the ‘group dynamic’ effect particularly interesting and important. Furthermore, this allows the testimony of participants to be checked, challenged and defended. • A witness seminar is taped and transcribed. Participants are allowed to redact the transcript principally to improve readability and to clarify meaning. An agreed version is published and archived for the use of researchers. • The aim of a witness seminar is to bring together participants or ‘witnesses’—to re- examine and reassess key aspects of, and events in, recent history; to comment, examine and assess developments in the recent past. • A further aim of a witness seminar is to capture nuances of individual and group experiences that cannot be found in, or are absent from, documents or written material. Since its founding in 1986, the Institute of Contemporary British History (ICBH) has been uniquely associated with the production of witness seminars on events or developments that have taken place within the bounds of living memory. The ICBH Witness Seminar Programme has been copied by other institutions, both in Britain and abroad, and the ICBH regularly collaborates with scholars from other institutions in planning and hosting witness seminars of particular relevance to their work. Reference Lindlof, T. R. & Taylor, B. C. 2002. Qualitative Communication Research Methods, 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, p. 182. 8 Aims of Science and Heritage From the end of World War II up till the present day, the development of the application of science to cultural heritage (which may be interpreted variously as archaeological science, conservation science, building science and more recently heritage science) has ebbed – and sometimes flowed – according to changes in policy, the economy and socio-cultural priorities. Nevertheless, the trend has been toward slow growth and some improvement. The more recent focus of funding on heritage science research has seen renewed