Australian Museum of Printing celebrates 25th birthday with name change

Guest of honour Bob Carr, NSW’s longest serving Premier who now heads up the Australian Heritage Council, pictured here cutting the birthday cake on Penrith Museum of Printing’s 25^th birthday: the museum officially changing its mantle to the Australian Museum of Printing to celebrate the occasion.

Recruiter and Museum sponsor James Cryer opened proceedings, introducing Museum President Bob Lockley to say a few words, proudly pointing out what he described as ‘the finest collection of working Letterpress and Linotype equipment in the Southern Hemisphere.

Lockley then took the opportunity to remind everyone of the effort put in by a dedicated band of volunteers, ‘who not only keep the letterpress presses in good working order, but also retain and practice the skills required to operate the unique machines, thereby conserving Australia’s non-tangible heritage skills’.

Key to Lockley’s address was recognition and appreciation of the generosity of industry sponsors, which include IVE Group, Durst Oceania, Lamson Group, Bottcher, Graph-Pak, Finsbury Green and Cactus Imaging, as well as the Penrith Paceway in continuing to support the museum. He also invited the industry to visit the 4th Annual Rare Books Exhibition, held in conjunction with the State Library at the site in October.

When Bob Carr spoke, he focused on the importance of preserving all aspects of Australian history such as the Australian Museum of Printing, revealing that he himself started out as a ‘copy boy’ on The Sun newspaper and then became a journalist on The Bulletin. Later he co-owned Sydney printing company Merrit Madden (now part of IVE) with his late wife. Carr linked printing skills with other such heritage skills as shearing and ethnic language conservation, pointing out that non-tangible heritage skills are just as important as maintaining and recognising the hardware, functions and structures of the past. He said that without the knowledge of how to operate them, the machines, which were the cutting-edge technologies of former times, are just mute metal.

The Lord Mayor of Penrith, Todd Carney, and local State member Karen McKeown, also attended the event, as well as the museum’s co-founder, Graham Elphick: with the new name becoming official as Carr cut the first slice of celebratory cake.

Amongst the machinery and historic printing paraphernalia, visitors to the museum can find a facsimile copy of the Gutenberg 42-line Bible, the first copies of the Sydney Morning Herald, a photo of Albert Einstein operating a Linotype machine and a priceless collection of Walkley-award winning photos from 1945 to 1995 showing many iconic pieces and personalities in Australian post-war history.

In the foreground of the above photo with Bob Carr is a poster for the film ‘Ladies in Black’: the scenes where actor Shane Jacobson was typesetting pages of the SMH were filmed at the museum.

Related

New Head of ESG for Australia and New Zealand at JCDecaux ASGA/HEXIS Wrap Battle winners heading to New Zealand Tint Design acquired in management buyout Avery Dennison CEO to retire, COO Deon Stander appointed as next CEO