Growing Pains – the development of a conservation profession

In developing from a craft to a profession, individual conservators have evolved their intellectual and manual skills in many specialist fields. However as many conservators primarily define themselves by their specialisms, defining conservation as a unified profession is problematic. This in turn restricts the ability of the profession to influence the wider world. Recent events in the UK such as the development of a professional accreditation scheme have returned the focus to the standards and core functions of conservation. This remind us that all conservators want to achieve the same thing albeit in many different ways. By examining the defining characteristics of ‘professions’, and analysing the activities of conservation bodies, this paper considers what is required to develop fully-fledged professional bodies for conservation. A number of case studies are used to illustrate how co-operative initiatives focussed on clearly articulated professional goals is the most efficient way to develop the profession and that attempts to pursue conservation through a federation of material specialisms holds it back