Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 15, 2018

Nigel Williams (15 July 1944 – 21 April 1992) was a British conservator. From 1961 until his death he worked at the British Museum, where he became the Chief Conservator of Ceramics and Glass in 1983. He was one of the first people to study conservation, before it was recognised as a profession. In the 1960s he assisted with the re-excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, and in his twenties he conserved many of the objects found therein, including a shield, drinking horns, and maplewood bottles. Restoration of the Sutton Hoo helmet alone occupied a year of his time. After nearly 31,000 fragments of shattered Greek vases were found in 1974 amidst the wreck of HMS Colossus (1787), Williams set to work piecing them together, and the process was televised for a BBC programme. His crowning achievement, the reassembly of the Portland Vase (pictured) in 1988 and 1989, took nearly a year to complete, and was also televised. The Ceramics & Glass group of the Institute of Conservation awards a biennial prize in his honour.