News

The Head of Department UNI Graphical Steve Walsh along with Tony Burke Assistant General Secretary UNITE GPM Sector and Jon Geenen, Vice President USW were taken on a tour of the The Printers Collection by the Director of Archives Dr John Callow.



The archives and history of the printing and papermaking unions of the UK and Ireland are housed in the Marx Memorial Library, Clerkenwell, London.



Steve Walsh said “that it was a real pleasure to visit such an important collection of print trade union history, it is vital that we continue to collect and preserve this history and I urge all members and Chapels to consider donating items of memorabilia to the Collection to ensure that future generations know of the important struggle that print workers and their unions made to society”

The Collection is also now available to print and paperworkers, trade unionists, students and historians worldwide on a new website.The website contains the history of the UK and Ireland's print and paper unions dating back to the creation of craft guilds of the Middle Ages; the first independent trade unions which were established in the mid 1700s with the formation of Bookbinders lodges in London and the Manchester Typographical Society and the Trade Union Congress in Manchester in 1868 by three print union officials.

The history of the print and paper unions was written by professor John Gennard of Strathclyde University. The website contains details of how to visit the archive, opening times, group bookings etc. Because of the large number of foreign visitors to the Marx Memorial Library every year the website has information on the archive in Welsh, German, Chinese, Polish, Italian and Russian.

In addition print and paper workers and trade unionists can leave messages and recollections and there are details of how donations of union memorabilia from the print and paper trade unions can be made to the archive.

Tony Burke said: "Many former GPMU branches, chapels and activists have contacted us wanting to donate some of their memorabilia. We are always interested in receiving memorabilia as we know this precious material will be carefully looked after and treasured by the library.

"We want to encourage trade unionists, especially print and paper workers, students and anyone else to visit the archive and look at this historic material. We are very proud that we have been able to donate the history of our unions to the archive. Our next task is to re-establish the memorial to print and paper trade unions who fought in the Spanish Civil War in the small garden at the library."

The Printers Collection and archive is situated in the Marx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London, EC1R 0DU, UK,

The website address for the printers collection is: http://www.printerscollection.org.uk