One of Norwich’s long standing hidden treasures the John Jarrold Printing Museum has been earmarked for demolition to make way for a new housing and office development with proposed plans that may involve reducing this unique and rare working Museum into a small static display in a cafe setting, showcasing just a few ‘key pieces’ of printing and bindery equipment.
The Museum now in it’s 36th year is one of the only working print museum existing in the UK and houses an unrivalled collection of historic Presses, Machinery, Composing, lead and wooden Type and Bookbinding equipment as well as a constantly expanding Print Related Library.
It holds the only known surviving example of a Ratcliff direct lithographic press manufactured by John Ratcliff & Sons Ltd, Wortley & Leeds in 1927 which was donated by Curwen Studios, London as well as rare treasures such as a reconstruction by R. Stanley Nelson (Smithsonian Institution) of the first two pages of Genesis. Printed on an iron hand press dated from around 1845, it was created by using moveable type in the same way that 17th century printers would have used.
The demise of such a collection would have a huge impact not only to the rich heritage of Norwich but to local tourism and the history of Printing itself which dates back to the 15th century.
The Jarrold Family name is synonymous with Printing and Publishing and was at the forefront of technical advances within the industry.
Caroline Jarrold played an active role when the Museum was officially opened in 1982 by the then serving Lord major of Norwich, Mr George Richards, as a memorial to John Jarrold. A number of the company’s employees at the time formed a Guild headed by Mike Fuggle whose enthusiasm was key to the Museum’s development.
The Museum’s aims and objectives are to preserve historic printing machines and equipment, to practise the ancient crafts of printing and bookbinding, produce good work and to pass on the skills of the craftsmen to others in order to keep alive the heritage from the past in order to better understand the developments of the future.
The presses, equipment and machinery, much of which has been entrusted to the Museum for safe keeping over the years, has been sympathetically and lovingly restored and maintained to provide a working model for the education and enjoyment of future generations.
Run by passionate volunteers, many of which are from the printing trade who were trained through six year apprenticeships followed by lifetimes of hands on experience.
Contrary to some opinions that the Museum has no future due to the age of some of the members, the Museum is currently a vibrant, valuable training resource and visitor centre. Within this the older member’s skills from their respective fields of composing, printing and book binding are being passed down to next generation Museum volunteers/members to enable a continuation of the Museum and the skills surrounding the various print processes for many years to come.
It keeps alive the history, origins and practices of printing and bookbinding, including lithography, woodcut, linocut, etching and aquatint, engraving and drypoint all of which could potentially benefit thousands of students and visitors in the coming years through a program of courses, demonstrations, lectures and associated events.
It is of immense value to students studying at Norwich University of the Arts, UEA and beyond who regularly visit the Museum throughout their studies, many returning in their latter years to create their own projects or learn more about the history of typography and print.
The building in which the Museum is currently housed is the former engineer’s workshop which blends seamlessly with the adjacent listed building of St James Mill and accurately depicts a typical print shop from days gone by. It has also been featured in many film and TV programmes such as Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press, Mary Berry (Who Do You Think You Are?), Paddington 2 and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. and was recently cited in Norwich’s bid for UNESCO City of Literature.
Within this age of technology and social media, it is all the more important that a museum of this nature and stature is preserved to show future generations the importance of “communicating the word” via books and literature; how it changed our world in helping to educate the masses; books hitherto being only available to the privileged in society.
Norwich City Council have a site specific policy (Policy Ref. CC17b) which requires that the Museum remains on the site regardless of any future development. What better place than in its current home adjacent to St. James Mill? Frankly, placing machines in a cafe setting with an explanatory film of how they previously worked, as has been suggested, does not come anywhere near to fulfilling the criteria.
The Museum has a positive and important future and we must all pull together to save it. Please lend your support.
This article gives contact details as regards the Planning Department.