Blog

West Midlands Volunteer Awards 2018

Volunteer Awards
  Left: Host Ray Johnson, documentary film maker, actor and writerCentre: Joe Welch, Pen MuseumRight: Sue Williamson, Director: Libraries and Birmingham Arts Council EnglandImage: Lee Allen Photography Young People Award On 6 September 2018 at the Birmingham Hippodrome, guests were treated to a fantastic evening of fun and entertainment for the West Midlands Volunteer Awards ceremony. [...]

World Calligraphy Day 2018 writing its own headlines

Manuscript Pen Company are celebrating the success of the second World Calligraphy Day across the world. World Calligraphy Day 2018 The renowned pen manufacturer celebrated the popular craft at The Pen Museum, as people put pen to paper both in Birmingham and throughout the globe on the second World Calligraphy Day. There were a selection […]

Favourite exhibit: Steel Nib Making

Visitor Engagement Pen Museum
Most museums ask that you don’t touch things. A few have items that it’s okay to examine. The Pen Museum has one that you actually use. You’ll need to be shown how but then you can use the same tools that pen manufacturing staff did. They had to make hundreds and you’ll only need to [...]

Suffrage Exhibition

Suffrage
Penscribes, an amateur calligraphy group, invite visitors at the Pen Museum to view the temporary exhibition of calligraphy on the theme of Suffrage to celebrate 100 years since the first women got the vote.  In the spirit of the subject matter you are invited to vote on which piece of work appeals to you most. [...]

History of the Pen Licence

If you thought pens and paper had long been replaced by smart phones and emoji, well, we can’t say we’d blame you. Yet in this modern world where everything is so fast and everything is online, the humble pen has again become key. It has again become something you aspire to owning, because of what [...]

The Pen Museum celebrates the Royal Wedding

Commemorating a Very Special Event The Pen Museum in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter is delighted to celebrate the Royal Wedding with a unique, hand made, handwritten card sent today to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Meghan is well known as a calligraphy aficionado and she is sure to be delighted with this special card commissioned and […]

New Exhibition by the Birmingham Calligraphy Society

The Pen Museum is delighted to host a brand new exhibition in partnership with the Birmingham Calligraphy Society. A total of 9 contributors have come together to present an incredible variety of styles and themes. With Psalms, the Staffordshire Hoard and even a gilded badger to name a few, this colourful exhibition is sure to […]

New President signs in at the Pen Museum

Birmingham City Councillor Philip Davis became President of The Pen Museum from April, at the beginning of an important new chapter in this unique museum’s history.  His appointment coincides with its formal transition into a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, at the start of an ambitious expansion and development programme. Cllr. Davis is well placed to help […]

Pens, People and Power: The 1918 Representation of the People Act

As thousands of us turn out to vote in local elections today, let’s briefly step back 100 years to when the UK’s Representation of the People Act was passed at a time when female workers made up around 75% of the Birmingham pen trade’s workforce. 2018 marks the centenary of the Representation of the People […]

International Women’s Day

When the history of Birmingham is told, pen making is right up there with every fine trade the city was founded on. The names of brothers John and William Mitchell will rightly also always be mentioned as the first manufacturers to use machines for cutting pen nibs. Wrongly, though, there are people who don’t get […]