Type Museum

The Type Archive, originally known as the Type Museum, was a significant collection of artifacts reflecting the heritage of English type founding. It was founded in 1992 by Susan Shaw in Stockwell, in south London. The site housed original molds, punches, matrices, and patterns from some of the most successful metal and wood type foundries in England, which over the centuries supplied the world with type in more than thirty languages. The collection was estimated to include several million objects, among them a historic collection of printing presses. One distinctive feature was that it housed Monotype Hot-Metal Ltd., a group of former employees of the Monotype Corporation who, until it closed in July 2022, were still producing matrices for the hot-metal typesetting technology used around the world.

The premises on Hackford Road were once a veterinary station, which gave the founder the idea for the archive's elephant symbol. Among the most important holdings were the Stephenson Blake Collection of industrial casting equipment, the complete archive of the Monotype Corporation, and the tools and patterns of the Robert DeLittle wood type manufactory, England's last specialized maker of wood type. Because the archive generally had no fixed opening hours, public access was limited. Visitors could nevertheless gain insights at occasional open houses, school workshops, and special exhibitions. For example, a 2017 exhibition showed works by the typographer Berthold Wolpe, while in 2018 the calligraphic work of the Icelandic artist Gunnlaugur SE Briem was on display.

In 2022, the archive announced that it would give up its building and transfer parts of the collection to other institutions. The Victoria and Albert Museum took over the Stephenson Blake Collection on a provisional basis, while the Science Museum took back the Monotype holdings. The operations of Monotype Hot-Metal Ltd. were discontinued, marking the end of an era for the craft production of metal type in England.