The working life of Museum of London

The 21st October 2009 was an auspicious day in the life of Bill White, Senior Curator of Human Osteology as it heralded his retirement from the Centre of Human Bioarchaeology, Museum of London.

After starting his career as a Chemist Bill was then drawn to the fascinating world of skeletons and after adding osteological qualifications to his chemistry bow he started work as a freelance osteoarchaeologist. In this capacity in 1988 he analysed the skeletal material from medieval St Nicholas Shambles that subsequently led to the first of many publications. Not having looked back since he went on to work for Museum of London Specialist Services (MoLSS), Museum of London Archaeological Services (MoLAS) and with the establishment of the Centre for Human Bioarchaeology (CHB) through Wellcome funding in 2003 became the inaugural Curator of Human Osteology.

As senior curator at the inception of the Centre and over the last six years Bill has overseen many developments in the Centre, including the recording of the c.5,000 individuals of archived skeletal material onto the Oracle electronic database, Wellcome Osteological Research Database (WORD), the creation of the CHB website with downloadable data, frequent and varied out reach events and providing access and advice on the skeletal material for numerous researchers from all over the world.

It has been a great pleasure and fun to work with Bill over the last six years and he will be greatly missed in the Centre but fortunately for us he is keen to return and will do so in December under a new guise as an Emeritus Curator.

We would all like to wish him well and much happiness in his retirement.

Jelena Bekvalac
Curator of Human Osteology
Department of Archaeological Collections and Archive