BAPH is a national association which aims to bring together individuals, companies and institutions with a common interest in the following areas:
- paper in all its forms and diversity
- papermaking by hand and machine
- conservation
- mill and company histories
- papermakers, their families and communities
- machinery manufacture and development
- watermarks
The British Association of Paper Historians was founded in 1989 after the successful congress of the IPH (International Paper Historians) in Durham and the celebration of 500 years of papermaking in Britain in 1988.
The BAPH is a self-financing organisation and as such relies on the income generated from membership subscriptions and sales of its publications.