National Printing Heritage Committee
Recent News
The NPHC has granted £2,498 to Paekakariki Press Ltd. to undertake the organisation, cataloguing and promotion of their significant collection of Monotype matrices.
Do you have printing equipment that you would like to see preserved?
We try to find new homes for redundant items that are connected to the practices of graphical reproduction, typesetting and printing, including tools, machinery, equipment, literature, and records.
It usually takes time to find suitable homes for such material. If you are considering disposing of anything that you think we could re-home, please contact us as early as possible.
Please email your enquiry to the Secretary.
Support
Please support the work of the NPHC by joining the Printing Historical Society (part of the membership fees of the Society goes to support the work of the Committee). The Society has a special category of ‘Supporting Member’ for those who wish to make additional donations to support grant-giving and the work of the NPHC.
The National Printing Heritage Committee (NPHC) has responsibility for the duties and resources of the former National Printing Heritage Trust (NPHT), which was wound up in 2016. The NPH Committee is made up of former Trustees of the NPHT and newly appointed Committee members. Its essential aims remain unchanged:
To attract public interest in, and raise financial support to enable, the establishment of a National Museum of Printing.
To help, via practical and financial support and advice, museums and other collection-holders acquire, restore and display items and archives of historical or scientific interest relating to printing and its associated crafts.
To raise funds to support the acquisition, leasing, or renting of suitable premises to facilitate the storage and renovation of machinery and equipment which might otherwise be scrapped.
To encourage the education of the public, and the preservation and dissemination of knowledge, in all aspects of the history and practical application of printing and its associated crafts.
Grants
In pursuit of these aims, the NPHC gives grants to support the preservation, restoration, transportation and accessibility of printing-related machinery, objects and archives. Grants are offered year-round, typically up to £1,000 (applications for higher amounts may be considered in exceptional circumstances).
To apply for a grant, or seek information on printing-historical objects, please contact the NPHC Secretary. A list of previous recipients of NPHC grants can be found here.
Directory
The Trust has compiled a Directory of historical printing equipment held by British museums, and a revised version of this will be mounted on the website as soon as possible, with the hope of further updating and enlarging the data available.
Virtual museum project
In 2020, the NPHC launched the ‘British Museum of Printing’ project, renamed in 2023 as the ‘Virtual Museum of Printing’ or ‘VMP’. It is owned and operated by the Printing Historical Society, with the Centre for Printing History and Culture (CPHC), the Baskerville Society, and the Bibliographical Society on the masthead as official ‘Founding Sponsors.’
The project is being led by Lee Hale, the project Steering Group Chair. The objective of the Museum is to ‘bring as much of the nation’s printing-historical resources as possible together on one virtual collective museum site.’ The site will be a platform for print historians, practitioners, and heritage professionals across the nation to contribute data, images, video, and narrative relating to their collections.
More information is available on our ‘Toward a Virtual Museum of Printing’ page.
More Information
If you would like more information on any of our projects, please contact the NPHC Secretary.