Last November, the post below appeared under the title “Saving the John Jarrold Printing Museum”. News has arrived that the museum will be renamed the “Norwich Printing Museum” and moved to St. Peter Parmentergate in King Street, Norwich. The Norwich Printing Museum’s volunteer supporters aim to open it in the summer 2020.
How fitting it would be if the organisers of the Leiden Book Arts Fair, held in St Pieterskirche, Leiden, every November, were to celebrate the event next year. The connections between The Netherlands and Norwich/Norfolk run deep. And, given that the great-great-grandson of John Folger who came to America from Norwich in 1635 and settled in Watertown, MA, was Benjamin Franklin, arguably America’s “uncle of printing”, how fitting it would be if the members of the New England chapter of the American Printing History Association played printer’s devil to the affair.
Congratulations to Jules Allen and the NPM volunteers and thanks to Caroline Jarrold for this outcome.
Posting from 8 November 2018:
From Print Week, 26 September 2018
The John Jarrold Printing Museum in Norwich, England, is one of the few working print museums in the world. Here’s a selection of ten from among its hundreds of holdings:
- Star wheel etching press. Wood & Company, West Smithfield, London. 1858. No.1250. Donated by Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, June 2010.
- Albion. Hopkinson & Cope, Finsbury. 1845. No. 1900. From Mr Gott of Watts & Rowe, King’s Lynn.
- Albion. Hopkinson. Jonathan & Jeremiah Barrett, executors of R. W. Cope, Finswbury, London. 1840. No. 1273. From William Booth, Woodbridge.
- Columbian. Probably George Clymer. c.1845. Was purchased new by Jarrold & Sons Ltd, and was their longest serving machine. (Lent to the Norwich School of Art for the Caxton Quincentenary).
- Stanhope. 1825. Donated by Cambridge University Press.
- Side-lever lithographic hand press. Hughes & Kimber. ex Norwich College of Art & Design.
- Top lever lithographic hand press. D. & J. Greig, Lothian Road, Edinburgh. c.1840. 24 x 17 in. Presented to John Jarrold Printing Museum, May 1999 by Geoffrey Dunn, 22 Henry Drive, Leigh on Sea, Essex, SS9 3QQ.
- Ratcliff direct lithographic press. John Ratcliff & Sons Ltd, Wortley & Leeds. 1927. Double demy. Donated by Curwen Studios, London. Thought to be the only surviving example.
- Furnival stop-cylinder. 1984. Double demy. Donated by H. Hawes, Elmswell.
- Heidelberg one-revolution cylinder press, c.1950. Donated by Jarrold & Sons Ltd. Heidelberg. Schnellpressenfabrik A.G. Heidelberg, Germany.
The developers aiming to tear down the building that houses the John Jarrold Printing Museum have mooted keeping some of the older printing presses now there and using them as mood or accent pieces for the café to be built as part of their residential development plans.
Anyone caring to comment can do so on the Norwich City Council planning site.
Books On Books 