Who we are

We are working or retired printers, design and typographical enthusiasts.

We make up a museum society which has grown from the small group which in 1984 rescued a couple of outdated letterpress printing machines otherwise destined for the wreckers.

Why a printing museum?

Print technology was the means by which information and knowledge was able to reach all people. Printed materials provided the foundation of the modern education system, and in New Zealand was how the earliest European settlers, the missionaries, introduced Maori to literacy as well as religion.

The history of print technology is therefore a significant strand in the history of New Zealand since European settlement. It is important to our cultural history, and therefore understanding the technology and its development increases understanding in our past. We need to nurture this understanding by improving accessibility to displays (especially working displays) of technology, which bring the past to life.

What We are About

The late Neil Blundell operating the Albion hand press
at its re-commissioning in 1995.

Over the past 30-40 years or so, the second wave of new technology affected the printing industry and local printers donated their letterpress equipment to The Printing Museum. Also, some items came from Auckland Tauranga, Taranaki, Whanganui and the Manawatu. (The first wave of technology was the mechanisation of printing in the late 19th century).

The collection is comprehensive. All items are unique, but one has very special status as a tangible link to New Zealand and Wellington's early colonial years: it is an 1852 Harrild "Albion" hand-press, used by the Blundell family to print the first issue of "The Evening Post" in 1865. This press is typical of the machine used to print dozens of colonial newspapers in the 30 or so years up to 1880.

Also significant is the fact that in the 400 years from 1450 when the Gutenberg first printed from movable type in Europe, printing had changed very little: the timber-framed press had been replaced in the early 19th century by presses of iron and steel like our Albion and still printed one page at a time. Type was still set, one letter at a time, as it has been for hundreds of years.

The Printing Museums collection also reflects the industrial revolution which saw the hand-press which printed maybe 200 copies an hour, replaced by semi automatic cylinder presses printing perhaps 3000 pages per hour. The ingenious and mechanically marvelous Linotype machine in 1886 revolutionised typesetting and bought about a huge expansion in printed matter of every sort. The Linotype dominated printing until it, too, was superseded by computerised typesetting and offset lithographic printing in the 1970s - the third wave of technology. The fourth major change in printing technology was now under way - digital printing.

The cavalcade of printing heritage can be seen in working examples at The Printing Museum.