Staff are sad to share the news of the passing of Yuki Russell, one of the conservators at the Norfolk Record Office, in August 2026.

In her native Japan, Yuki studied for a MA in Conservation for Cultural Property specialising in Painting Conservation at Tokyo University of the Arts, before working at the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo. Yuki moved to England where she gained a second MA in Conservation of Fine Art specialising in Works of Art on Paper at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle.

Yuki started working for the Norfolk Record Office in 2008 where she introduced several Japanese techniques to paper conservation work. She encouraged conservators to replace the linen backing on conserved maps with paper which enabled the maps to be more flexible, reducing the likelihood of damage.

Yuki is well known by many of our customers for her work on the Norwich Bomb Map. A lengthy project in which she conserved nearly 700 labels pinpointing where bombs had fallen on Norwich during the Second World War. She also led a 5-year project to conserve the Richard Bright papers. These papers comprise 850 individual manuscripts and 13 notebooks written by Dr Richard Bright, a key figure in the history of medicine and intellectual life, famous for his work in nephrology and discovery of Bright’s disease. Yuki worked hard to develop the techniques to conserve these papers and managed David Parker, the conservator employed to work on the material.

Yuki also shared her expertise extensively giving many talks, including a talk on Which Gelatine to Use? The choices for conservators, at the CCI Symposium: Adhesives and Consolidants for Conservation in Ottawa, Canada alongside co-conservator Antoinette Curtis and the Preservation of Cultural Heritage in Japan for The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Art and Conservation at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, in March 2026. For her work on the Norwich Bomb Map Yuki appeared in the BBC One series Blitz Cities.

Yuki was instrumental in working with outside organisations to develop new technologies, for example working with Preservation Equipment Limited in Diss to create tablets for determining volatile organic compounds. These tablets can be used on film or photographs to determine the amount of degradation in order to decide on the treatment needed.

Yuki was a member of The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) and The Japan Society of the Conservation for Cultural Property (JSCC).

Outside of work Yuki loved being on the water, as a keen sea kayaker, visiting Scotland and Wales to kayak, and surfing in Japan. In Norfolk, Yuki would go canoeing and enjoyed mushrooming. She had varied interests, taking French lessons, attending film club, as part of a book club and playing the piano. She lived in Suffolk with her husband and son.

Yuki will be sorely missed by her colleagues at the Norfolk Record Office and those who worked with her from other organisations.