Penrith Museum of Printing attracts over 800 visitors during the 177th Penrith Show last weekend, the 27 and 28 August 2022.

​

Visitors witnessed how the printed word evolved from 1450 to the 1980’s Handset type, Linotype machines and 160 year old presses all in action, some of the children having their names set then printed on a poster which went down well.

All for free.

​

The volunteers put in two big days explaining the process to very interested people of all ages. When you see this kind of reaction from visitors who knew of our predicament saying:

“it’s such a place of Historical, education and history which

must be saved” 

​

Seeing all equipment actually running was the winner as opposed to static displays. Visitors were staying for extended periods of time in most cases.

A great weekend all round, hope to see you all again next year

Our expected move from our current site has suddenly turned into a real possibility in less than a year.  With the announcement that the NSW Government is looking at acquiring The Paceway, which is where the Museum has been situated since 2001. The Paceway has been very supportive of us over this time with rent free assistance and clearly this is the main reason we have survived for nearly 22 years, along with our valued sponsor, visitors and tour groups.

Today we are urgently seeking a new opportunity.  If we find the need to seek a grant to build elsewhere, this comes with a time factor, whereby we would have to close down and store equipment while a build takes place and the question is where?  During this time a main concern is in losing our dedicated team of volunteers with their invaluable knowledge, who may find other interests.

We are the only Printing Museum with working equipment in Australia dated back to the 1840's.  Our strength is that we are not a static display but an operational display.

We must save this Museum, the Educational and Historical benefits we hold need to be kept alive for the future generations. We all need to help to save our Print History!

This week we had a visit from the "Nepean valley RSL Day Club", to see and learn about the  Australian history of printing. It turned out to be another great tour with 26 very interested visitors, entertained by our team of Bob, Reg, George, John and Stephen.

This very enthusiastic group was challenging us in every direction on the history of Gutenberg. They listened intently and I am very pleased to say they all passed the short test at the conclusion of the tour, with a lot of information to take home from the two hours they were there.