A blog post on why I am happy that the art of vellum is being saved.
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| Laburnum anagyroides on vellum (crop) |
I awoke today to hear the very good news that the British
Government were not going ahead with
their plans to stop using vellum for their archive copies of UK Acts of
Parliament.
The arguments for changing from vellum to archival paper were
purely financial, because it is inconceivable that anyone would want to lose a centuries old tradition
that includes the Domesday Book (1086) and the Magna Carta (1215). By switching
to paper, the UK government claimed that they would save £80,000 per annum,
although in fact, they only pay £46,000 p.a. to William Cowley’s, the sole producer
of vellum in the UK and Ireland. It goes without saying, that the Irish Government would also quickly move to adopt such a decision if it was to go ahead.
