They say that the pen is mightier than the sword. That may be true, but thinking about the museums I’ve visited in the past, there's been far more swords than pens. This isn’t the case, however, at The Argent centre in Birmingham.
There, at The Pen Room Museum and Learning Centre, I found nibs and quills, slates and pencils, and a group of volunteers eager to impart information about the part that Birmingham played in the pen trade during the 19th and early 20th century.
In the first room, large display cabinets showcased the writing implements produced by various local companies. I picked up a photocopied guide to each cabinet, but I couldn’t always find the objects mentioned (and found that some of the items I wanted to know about most weren’t mentioned in the guide). When I got into the second room, one of the volunteers said, “you might find that the guide’s a little out of date.”
So the information about the cabinets wasn't great, but I did enjoy the area in the second room where you could try out different writing implements, quills, fountain pens, bottles of ink, and even the slates that I’m told were used in schools in the ‘old days’. I’m not sure how people managed to write letters back then – even when I tried to sign my name, my quill ran out of ink before I’d finished!
Another highlight was using the Museum’s hand presses to create my own pen nib. Cutting out a flat nib shape from metal. Poking a whole in it. Stamping on the name of the company. Adding a slit to the end. All I missed out were the bits in the middle of the process that involve putting the half-finished nib into the furnace. It took me about 10 minutes to create just one nib, with a museum volunteer explaining how I should use each machine and answering my questions. The women who used to work these presses, he told me, were expected to create thousands of these each day.
The Pen Room is located at Unit 3, The Argent Centre, 60 Frederick Street, Birmingham. It’s free to enter, but the museum is run a charity and they do accept donations. There’s also got a shop where you can buy pens, books and other themed gifts.
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