View table: Newspaper
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Table structure:
- Other_Names - String
- Abbreviation - String
- Begin_year - String
- End_Year - String
- PapersPast_Years - String
- Region - String
- Brief_History - Text
- NewsFacts - String (allowed values: The following list is of rail related facts found in this newspaper. Select 'Edit with form' from the top menu then scroll to the bottom o add an item)
This table has 62 rows altogether.
| Page | Other Names | Abbreviation | Begin year | End Year | PapersPast Years | Region | Brief History | NewsFacts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser (edit) | AMBPA | 21-Jul-1876 | Still being published | 1877 - 1939 | Canterbury | The Akaroa Mail’s first bi-weekly issue was published on July 21 1876. It was begun by the peripatetic ‘rag-planter’ Joseph Ivess who began nearly 30 newspapers in clusters of small towns around New Zealand for three decades from the early 1870s. Ivess sold the Akaroa Mail a year later and there were several owners before, in 1881, the paper was bought by Howard C Jacobson. The Jacobson family was to own and run the newspaper for 71 years. H C Jacobson, from Devon and educated at King’s College, London, was a school teacher before becoming, with Joseph Ivess, a part-owner of the Ashburton Mail, begun in 1877. Sale of his interest in the Ashburton paper helped fund his purchase of the Akaroa Mail. He was to run the newspaper until his death in 1910. His daughter Ethel May Jacobson, the seventh of 14 children, excelled at Christchurch Girls’ High School and subsequently gained BA and MA degrees in English and French from Canterbury College. She was teaching in Nelson when, in 1903, her father became ill and called her home to help run the Akaroa Mail. She soon became editor and took full control from 1907, three years before her father died. She was then the legal owner, manager and editor. For almost 50 years, certainly a record, Ethel Jacobson was to remain the Akaroa Mail editor. Later, her younger brother, William took care of the business side of the paper. In time, there were four staff in the printing department. Possibly Ethel Jacobson’s greatest achievement was her growing acceptance as a pioneering women editor at a time when the role was considered a male preserve. She was to become a familiar figure, with wide-brimmed hat and hobnailed boots, riding side-saddle over Banks Peninsula’s hilly terrain to report meetings and events. There were also launch trips to Pigeon Bay and Port Levy to ensure the detailed coverage that makes the newspaper an invaluable record of Banks Peninsula life. The newspaper was also, during her long editorship, widely respected for the standard of its journalism and high quality printing. Ethel Jacobson, who never married, retired in 1952 and died, 88 years old, in 1965. The year she retired the Akaroa Mail was sold to George R Dobbie, who had worked for the Christchurch Star-Sun, and subsequently edited the newspaper for a number of years. In the early 1980s there was a decline in editorial standards and stock photographs were used frequently and often inappropriately. Publication, continuous since 1876, was interrupted for two months in 1985 before publisher-editor Michael de Hamel took over, restored the previously high standards and substantially increased the paper’s circulation. | The following list is of rail related facts found in this newspaper. Select 'Edit with form' from the top menu then scroll to the bottom o add an item | |
| Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette (edit) | 1896 | still being published | 1902 - 1948 | Otago | Alexandra’s first newspaper was the Otago Central Leader, which ran for a short time in the early 1880s. However, the town’s first long-term effort was the Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, a weekly newspaper which began publication in 1896. The first few years of the Herald have unfortunately not survived and the exact date of the first issue is unclear. It was probably published in the latter part of May 1896, as the Tuapeka Times from nearby Lawrence reported on 30 May 1896 that it had received the first issue of the Herald, which it described as being ‘creditably brought out’. The Herald was established by Henry Symes, the Town Clerk and later Mayor of Alexandra, with plant that had been used to produce the Teviot Herald and Roxburgh District Gazette. J D Buchanan became editor of the Herald in 1898 and in the following year he took over ownership of the paper. Buchanan had previously been involved with the Mount Ida Chronicle and the Dunstan Times and after his arrival at the Alexandra Herald the Otago Witness noted it was now ‘a smartly got-up paper of eight pages, and claims to contain more columns of interesting reading matter than any other newspaper upon the goldfields’. In the 1890s and the early years of the twentieth century Alexandra developed rapidly, based on dredging for gold in nearby rivers. Under Buchanan and later, T H Cahill, the Herald shared in the increasing prosperity of the district. In 1939 the Herald was purchased by Harold Stevens, owner of the rival Dunstan Times which was published in Clyde. The Herald was merged with the Dunstan Times and the Queenstown-based Lake County Mail to form the Central Otago News in 1948, a bi-weekly publication which circulated widely throughout Central Otago. The Stevens family continued to have a close association with the newspaper for many years, in particular Geoff Stevens as managing director and Syd Stevens as editor. As of 2015, the News is still being published. It is part of the Allied Press group, publisher of the Otago Daily Times, and is circulated weekly to over 21,500 homes in the Central Otago area. | |||
| Ashburton Guardian (edit) | 1879 | still published | 1879 - 1950 | Canterbury | The 1870s and 1880s saw a flurry of newspaper publishing in Ashburton. First there was the Ashburton Mail, established in 1877 by Joseph Ivess, a prolific publisher of country newspapers. This was followed by the Evening Echo in 1878. The next year Ivess published the Evening News to help him in his bid for the Ashburton mayoralty. Charles Dixon and Horace Weeks, the owners of the Echo, now called the Ashburton Herald, started the Ashburton Guardian to oppose Ivess’s ambitions. Ivess narrowly lost the election although it’s not clear what, if any, effect the Guardian had on this. The town couldn’t support four newspapers so in 1880 Edward George Wright and Hugo Friedlander, the new owners of the Herald and Guardian, merged their two papers under the title of the Ashburton Guardian. In 1884 the Mail was sold to William Jules Steward. Steward had worked on various papers in Canterbury and Otago and represented the area in local and national politics. In 1885 Steward acquired the Guardian as well. Steward’s political commitments (he was a Member of the House of Representatives from 1881 to 1911), made it difficult for him to devote enough time to his papers and in the 1890s he leased them to Henry Willis, eventually selling them to Robert Bell in 1900. Robert Bell had worked on newspapers in Australia and Timaru before coming to Ashburton. He would become Managing Director of the Lyttelton Times in 1917 and Chairman of the Timaru Post in 1922. Bell closed the Mail in 1932 and died in 1937. His son W.B. Bell succeeded him as manager. The Guardian is still published by the Bell family, making it one of the few independently-owned daily newspapers left in New Zealand. | |||
| Ashburton Herald (edit) | 1878 | 1880 | 1878 - 1880 | Canterbury | The first newspaper published in Ashburton was the Ashburton Mail, which was started as a bi-weekly publication by Joseph Ivess in June 1877. Competition followed closely behind when the Evening Echo, Ashburton’s first daily newspaper, appeared on 11 March 1878. The Echo was established by Charles Dixon (1853-1915) and Smith James Furness (1852-1921). In September 1878 Horace John Weeks replaced Furness in the partnership. Furness subsequently owned the Marlborough Express and the Furness family controlled the Express for many years. On 22 February 1879, the Echo appeared in an enlarged format under the new title of the Ashburton Herald. In the same year, Ivess started a short-lived rival, the Evening News. No copies of the Evening News are known to exist; according to Ross Harvey it ‘was probably established only as an election newspaper to support Edward George Wright as Conservative candidate for the Coleridge electorate’. (Turnbull Library Record May 1988) Dixon and Weeks entered the morning market with the tri-weekly Ashburton Guardian in September 1879. However Ashburton was unable to support this proliferation of newspapers and in October 1880 the Guardian and the Ashburton Herald were merged into a daily evening newspaper, under the title of the Ashburton Guardian. The Ashburton Guardian incorporated the Ashburton Mail in 1932 and under the ownership of the Bell family has been a long-running and successful daily provincial newspaper. | |||
| Auckland Star (edit) | Auckland Evening Star; Evening Star | AS | 1870 | 1991 | 1870 - 1945 | Auckland | The Evening Star first appeared in Auckland in January 1870 more by accident than careful design. With ambitions beyond his clerkship at one of Auckland’s morning dailies, the Southern Cross, William Ferrar placed an advertisement seeking a partner in a publishing venture. A former Presbyterian minister, the Rev George McCullagh Reed, responded while passing through Auckland on his way back to Australia from the West Coast goldfields, and the two men met. Despite having little capital, no influential friends and minimal experience, they quickly agreed to begin an afternoon paper, of more liberal persuasion, in opposition to the Evening News. Julius Vogel, manager of the Southern Cross, agreed to print copies of the four page paper, with Reed, who had some writing ability, the editor and Ferrar selling advertisements. However, Reed unwisely pushed his temperance views in a town with a proliferation of pubs and taverns; more wisely he sought the advice of the New Zealand Herald’s £5 a week waterfront reporter Henry Brett. Advising that the lack of hard news was the problem, Brett took a third interest in the paper and was soon in charge with a young friend, Thomson Wilson Leys, formerly sub-editor of the Southern Cross, joining him. George Reed continued as editor until 1875, when Leys took over the role. Brett became sole proprietor of the newspaper which was renamed the Auckland Evening Star in 1879 and Auckland Star in 1887. Brett and Leys subsequently formed a commercial partnership and successive generations of both families continued to play leading roles. The Brett Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd. became a public company in 1920. In 1929, following the purchase of the Lyttelton Times and Christchurch Star, the company became New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. The newspaper’s growing success through the last decades of the nineteenth century was largely due to Brett’s commitment to providing as up-to-the moment news as possible. Before Auckland was linked to the telegraph, staff boarded arriving ships at the harbour entrance in specially-built boats to pick up English and Australian newspapers. Brett also used a dozen pigeons, from a Tasmanian breeder, to carry daily news from the Thames goldfields and from Tauranga where the telegraph line from Wellington ended in the early 1870s. It was claimed that the Evening Star had a circulation of 2,700 copies in 1872, rising to 4,700 three years later. In 1884, now the Auckland Evening Star, the paper’s circulation had reached 10,000. In 1898, Brett claimed the Auckland Star had the country’s largest afternoon circulation – 15,000 copies a day. The Star was one of the first newspapers in New Zealand to replace hand setting of type with linotype machines. It was also one of the first dailies to make regular use of photographs; the separate weekly magazine, the New Zealand Graphic, begun by Henry Brett in 1890, was illustrated from the beginning. The Auckland Star was a major, innovative metropolitan daily until the early 1960s. Weakened, as most afternoon papers were, by the introduction of television, the Star, and NZ Newspapers Ltd., fell prey to a corporate raider, and ceased publication in 1991. | |
| Bay of Plenty Beacon (edit) | BPB | 1939 | 1950 | 1939 - 1950 | Bay of Plenty | From the 1840s there was a good early relationship between the Ngati Awa tribe and the slowly growing number of Europeans living in the Whakatane area. This had changed by the mid-1860s. There was widespread Maori adoption of the new Pai Maire religion and the teachings of prophet Te Ua Haumene were peaceful, but the murder of Europeans in the Bay of Plenty by Hau Hau followers resulted in the confiscation of Ngati Awa’s lands. Following Te Kooti’s raid on Whakatane in 1869, there was a determined effort by European settlers and local Maori to re-establish community and economic life in the township. Whakatane had a population of a little over 200 when the first attempt was made to establish a newspaper. The Whakatane Times and Opouriao Advocate began its short life in 1899 but there were not sufficient readers or advertisers for it to survive beyond its first two months. The paper edited by H G Walmsley, was backed by Daniel McGarvey, a one-time compositor on Auckland’s Southern Cross. In 1901 there were 781 Europeans and between 3-4,000 Maori in Whakatane County. The township’s population had risen sufficiently by 1907 for the Whakatane County Press, using the Times plant, to have more sustained success. The owner, Charles Gibbs Beckett, was well-known for starting newspapers. According to the Thames Star in January 1907: ‘Mr C G Beckett bids fair to rival the fame of Mr Joseph Ivess as a newspaper ‘planter’. He is the proprietor of the Northern Wairoa Times, the Whangarei Morning Press and the Waihi Times, and he is now establishing a fourth at Whakatane, to be known as the Whakatane County Press. Years ago Mr Beckett established several papers in the Wairarapa district, and for some time he owned the Inglewood Record.’ Following the paper’s first issue on 14 January Wellington’s Evening Post reported that it ‘is a double-demy sheet, and claims to be the first penny paper in the Bay of Plenty. As befits a county paper, it gives full prominence to local news and local requirements.’ It appeared three times a week and was published in the morning. It may have been a daily for a time in 1916. One newspaper, at least, was less welcoming. In December 1907 the Bay of Plenty Times commented: ‘We notice that the Whakatane County Press makes very free with the articles in this paper by publishing them in its leading columns as original matter. We have no objection to incompetent papers copying our articles, provided they acknowledge their source instead of stealing them.’ During the period 1916-1921 Whakatane was the fastest growing town in New Zealand, contributing factors being the congenial climate, fertile alluvial plains and lower hill country and the increasing importance of the port at Whakatane. Forestry, fishing, and dairying were all important. In 1919 the Whakatane County Press was bought by the Bay of Plenty Printing Company and in 1923 changed back to evening publication. In 1935, it absorbed the East Coast Guardian from Opotiki and the paper’s title was changed to Bay of Plenty Press. The Bay of Plenty Press stopped publication at the beginning of 1939 and two months later F J Reynolds formed the Beacon Printing and Publishing Company and took over the Press’s machinery. The first issue of the Bay of Plenty Beacon, a tri-weekly, appeared in April 1939. The Whakatane Beacon, as the paper is now called, is a broadsheet publication printed three times a week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and on Fridays. It has a circulation of about 8,400. The Beacon Printing and Publishing Company also publishes the Bay Weekend, a tabloid newspaper delivered free every Saturday to every home in the greater Eastern Bay area. | ||
| Bay of Plenty Times (edit) | Times | BOPT | 4-Sep-1872 | Still being published | 1872 - 1949 | Bay of Plenty | The Bay of Plenty Times is currently one of the New Zealand's largest daily newspapers but for many years its existence was precarious and it came close to folding on a number of occasions. It was first produced on 4 September 1872 as a bi-weekly publication. It consisted of four pages in tabloid size and cost three pence per issue. The founder and editor was WB Langbridge. Ownership of the Times changed many times over the next 40 years, including several times through mortgagee sales. Despite the hardships the Times issued a Christmas supplement in 1897, which featured one of the earliest use of photographs in New Zealand newspapers. From 1913 the paper enjoyed stability after the Gifford and Cross families took over. Both families were associated with the paper until it was sold to Wilson and Horton in 1992. Ownership changed again in 1996 when Independent Newspapers PC from Dublin acquired a controlling interest in Wilson and Horton. In 1976 a fire destroyed the newspaper's entire collection of back issues. Fortunately the publisher had kept copies on microfilm and these are now held by the Alexander Turnbull Library. The Times has prospered in the last 50 years and appears secure. Its progress has been linked with that of the Bay of Plenty, which has grown rapidly and continuously since Mt Maunganui became an export port in the early 1950s. | |
| Bruce Herald (edit) | BH | 1865 | 7-Oct-1971 | 1865 - 1920 | Otago | The Bruce Herald was published at Milton from 1864 to 1971. It was one of New Zealand’s longest running country newspapers. The Herald was established by Joseph Mackay, a stationer and publisher from Dunedin. The Herald was one of a chain of newspapers that Mackay ran in Otago in the 1860s and 70s. Other papers in the chain included the Mataura Ensign at Gore and the Clutha Times at Balclutha. Financial difficulties in the late 1870s forced Mackay out of newspaper publishing and in 1879 he sold the Herald to Francis Grant & Co. The paper changed hands several more times over the next fifty years. Reginald Augustus Pyke was probably the most significant of the later owners. Pyke ran and edited the paper several times between 1896 and 1915. His editorial policy was unashamedly parochial as he used the Herald to advance the economic interests of Milton and Bruce County. His lobbying, through the pages of the Herald, was instrumental in attracting a woollen mill to the town. The mill was for many years one of the main employers in Milton. The Bruce Herald had a number of rivals in Milton between 1866 and 1910. The most notable were the Bruce Independent (1866-1867) and the Milton Mirror (1905-1910). The Independent provided some real competition for the short time it ran. Under Edward T. Gillon the paper gained much attention locally for its strong anti-provincial editorial policy. The impact of the Independent was such that the Herald increased the size of its issues from 4 to 8 pages. However Gallon’s views were too strong or at least too vigorously expressed for the directors of the Independent and the paper was wound up in 1867. The Milton Mirror was published by Charles Lewis Grant, a former employee of the Herald. The Mirror met with some success but was taken over by the Herald after a fire destroyed the Mirror’s office in 1910. The Herald ceased publication on 7 October 1971. | ||
| Bush Advocate (edit) | Takapau, Ormondville, Norsewood, Makotuku, Danevirke, and Wainui District Advertiser; Dannevirke Advocate | BA | 1888 | 1912 | 1888 - 1912 | Hawkes Bay | James Clayton established the Bush Advocate in Dannevirke (in the Manawatu) on 8 May 1888. The paper intended to cover a wide area, which can be seen from its rather long subtitle: 'the Takapau, Ormondville, Norsewood, Makotuhu, Dannevirke and Wainui District Advertiser.' Clayton had installed a quality press and the Bush Advocate was well produced from the start. It did not aim to represent any factional views but sought to serve the business needs of the communities in which it circulated and to report local news faithfully. The paper began life as a tri-weekly, published on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In 1893 Clayton sold it to David Curle, who had had extensive experience with Havelock and Wellington newspapers. New owners took over in 1901 and renamed the paper the Dannevirke Advocate. They in turn sold it to Thomas Lindsay Buick and John Ruffell Russell, in 1903. The paper flourished under their control and became a daily, expanding its news gathering service deep into the Hawke's Bay back country. Buick had been a Member of Parliament for Wairau, was an accomplished orator and journalist and the author of many books on New Zealand history (including a comprehensive survey of the early history of Marlborough). His interest in the Advocate continued until 1912 when the paper was sold and merged with the Dannevirke Evening News. | |
| Central Hawkes Bay Press (edit) | CHBP | 1936 | Still being published | 1936 - 1950 | Hawkes Bay | The Waipukurau Press, published in Waipukurau in central Hawke’s Bay, 7 kms south of Waipawa, thrived as a three-days-a-week newspaper in the 1920s. By 1927 eight-page issues were common. A modern brick and concrete factory was built in Ruataniwha Street in 1927 and by 1930 the paper circulated in Waipukurau Borough, Waipukurau, Waipawa and Patangata Counties. Archibald Holms was editor, although not continuously, from 1925 to 1936. After the 1931 earthquake, the Press moved to daily publication, and in 1936 became the Central Hawke’s Bay Press, the name and publication enduring for decades. Later in the decade the paper carried front-page news. In 1938, the Central Hawke’s Bay Press had new owners – Charlie Forbes, Wilk Hopkinson and Dick Clark. Other members of their families became shareholders later. During World War Two there was a much greater focus on world news, but with severe paper shortages there were four-page issues from 1943. Still published in Waipukurau, the paper dropped its Saturday edition in 1945, but continued to publish five days a week. Frank Ward managed the Waipukurau Press Co for 34 years until 1956. He died in 1958, aged 67. In the early 1950s, with wider columns and clearer type, production was more professional, but headlines remained small and photographs were rarely used. Later in the 1950s, the Press cost 3d an issue or one shilling a week. Four-page issues featured Press Association news from round the country and overseas on the front page, local and minor PA news on pages 2-3, and advertisements on the back page. In 1977, Hawke’s Bay Newspapers, publishers of the Hawke’s Bay Herald Tribune, purchased a 50 percent share in the Press company; the next year it bought the weekly Waipawa Mail. The Central Hawke’s Bay Press merged with the Waipawa Mail in 1980 and continued to be published in Waipukurau as the Mail. When publication of the Press ended in November 1980, it was circulating to 4,500 households in Central Hawke’s Bay. Later, as part of CHB Print, a division of Hawke’s Bay Newspapers, it became the weekly CHB Mail, and then the Central Hawke's Bay Mail. In 1997, Hawke’s Bay Newspapers was purchased by Wilson & Horton, publishers of the New Zealand Herald, then owned by the Dublin-based Independent News & Media Group (INM). In 2003, Wilson & Horton was sold to APN New Zealand which, in 2014, became part of NZME Publishing Limited. As of 2024, NZME continued to publish the weekly. | ||
| Clutha Leader (edit) | CL | 1874 | Still being published | 1874 - 1920 | Otago | The Clutha Leader was first published, weekly, in 1874 and was the first newspaper in Balcutha to be established that has lasted over time. While other newspapers were published in Balclutha, the only serious competition came from the Free Press (1891-1926). The Free Press supported the Liberal Party of Ballance, Seddon and Ward while the Clutha Leader backed Massey's conservative Reform Party. The Leader eventually proved too strong for its rival and absorbed the Free Press in 1927. Very few issues of the Free Press have survived while the Leader is still published. | ||
| Cromwell Argus (edit) | Cromwell Argus and Northern Gold-fields Gazette | CA | 3-Nov-1869 | 26-Oct-1948 | 1869 - 1948 | Otago | In October 1869 George Fenwick and James Matthews, owners of the Lawrence-based Tuapeka Press and Goldfields Advocate, visited Cromwell to investigate setting up a newspaper there instead of Lawrence. They discovered that Robert Carrick was also intending to start a newspaper in Cromwell but decided to go ahead with their plans after Carrick assured them he would not proceed with his venture. However, Carrick reneged on his promise and decided to go ahead with the Cromwell Guardian. The race was on to be first and on Saturday 6 November 1869 Fenwick set off from Lawrence on horse-back with 500 copies of the first edition of the Argus strapped on at the front of his saddle. After riding all day Sunday, Fenwick arrived in Cromwell and before breakfast on Monday he had distributed all of the papers. Cromwell was not large enough to support two newspapers and the rival Cromwell Guardian only lasted a short time. George Fenwick transferred his interest in the Argus to his brother William in 1871 and went on to be a major figure in the New Zealand newspaper industry, editing and managing the Otago Daily Times for many years and playing a key role in the establishment of the United Press Association. Matthews and William Fenwick sold the Argus to Stephen Noble Brown in 1875; Brown ran the Argus successfully for 12 years and subsequently moved to Dunedin where he was involved with the Evening Herald. William Fenwick went on to achieve prominence as editor of the Otago Witness for 27 years. The Argus had a long-running battle with its near neighbour the Dunstan Times which was based in Clyde, fuelled by antagonism between the editors and the rivalry between Cromwell and Clyde. The tone of the relationship is exemplified by an article in the Argus in February 1876 which referred to the ‘bilious venom’ and ‘wild ravings’ of the Times. In 1899 a rival closer to home appeared with the arrival of the Cromwell Times, established by Patrick Dunne who had previously been associated with the Mt Benger Mail. The Lake Wakatip Mail commented that the Times was launching at a time that ‘looks like a sea of trouble and an amount of cut-throat business which is good for neither God nor man’. This proved to be prescient with the Times going into liquidation in 1900. The last issue of the Argus was published on 26 October 1948. | |
| Daily Southern Cross (edit) | Southern Cross | DSC | 1843 | 1876 | 1843 - 1876 | Auckland | The Southern Cross was started as a weekly paper in Auckland in 1843 by prominent businessman and aspiring politician, William Brown. It was one of the two early newspapers in Auckland that ran for any length of time, the other being its main rival, the New Zealander. The first editor of the Southern Cross was Samuel Martin who had earlier edited the New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette for a short time in 1842. Despite the existence of two other papers in Auckland at the time (the Auckland Chronicle and Auckland Times) the Southern Cross developed reasonably well until 1845, when war with Māori in Northland adversely affected business in Auckland. As a result the paper stop publishing from April 1845 to July 1847. In 1847 Campbell revived the Southern Cross to counteract another Auckland newspaper, the New Zealander which had started two years earlier in June 1845. The two papers represented the rival factions in Auckland politics. The New Zealander supported the ordinary settler and Māori while the Southern Cross supported the land claimants and vigorously attacked Governor George Grey's administration. At this time there was nothing unusual in the highly partisan attitudes of these papers. Before 1870, newspapers in New Zealand were primarily set up for political purposes. In the absence of self-government newspapers were the main way that those who weren't officials could participate in government. In 1862 the Southern Cross became the first daily newspaper in Auckland, changing its name to the Daily Southern Cross. The New Zealander soon followed suit. In 1869 Julius Vogel assumed control of the paper but left to take up national office before he could do much with it, selling his interest in 1873. The paper had always struggled to pay its way. In the 1870s the owners were faced with the expense of shifting (the Improvement Commissioners planned to put a street through their property) and unable to agree on the direction that the paper should take. They decided to sell up instead. Alfred Horton bought the paper in 1876 and went into partnership with the Wilson brothers who owned the New Zealand Herald. At the end of that year the Southern Cross was incorporated into the Herald. The Southern Cross had started the Weekly News in 1863 and when the Southern Cross was incorporated into the Herald, the Weekly News was merged with the Weekly Herald to become the Auckland Weekly News. The New Zealander and the Southern Cross are good examples of the way the country's press was politically aligned at the time and this was mirrored in other centres around New Zealand. | |
| Daily Telegraph (edit) | DTN | 1871 | 1999 | 1881 - 1934 | Hawkes Bay | In February 1871, when Napier’s population was 2,179, the Daily Telegraph made its first, inauspicious appearance. With a liberal political stance – equal rights and opportunities for all – it was launched to combat the dominance of powerful land interests, and campaigned from the beginning for the break-up of the largest land blocks in Hawke’s Bay. Managing-director and founding editor, Richard Halkett Lord, a London journalist, even suffered a horsewhipping when his witty and pungent pen outraged a reader. However, the founding company was soon in financial difficulties and was wound-up 12 months later. The newspaper was then taken over by four of its principal shareholders: Edward W Knowles (merchant), George E Lee (barrister), Alexander Kennedy and Thomas K Newton. None had a journalistic background, but Robert Price, who replaced Richard Lord, remained editor until 1893. The Daily Telegraph’s coverage was in sharp contrast to the more conservative, ‘establishment’ views expressed by its already well-established competitor, the Hawke’s Bay Herald, which moved from bi-weekly to daily publication early in 1871 in response to the appearance of the new paper. Initially, the Daily Telegraph consisted of four (48cm x 34cm) pages, each with five columns. Usually six of the 20 columns carried news, with advertising filling the other 14. Advertising cost 3s per inch and the newspaper sold for 2d. Typesetting was by hand and the paper was printed on a single-sheet hand press. In 1879, the Daily Telegraph and Hawke’s Bay Herald’s circulations hovered around the 1,500 copies a day mark, but from 1880 the evening paper began to outpace its morning rival. The Daily Telegraph office in Tennyson Street, Napier was completely destroyed during a major fire on December 18 1886. For a period, until new premises were built, a small news sheet was produced every evening at a local printing office. By 1891, with the retirement of his partners, Edward Knowles had become sole proprietor and in 1908 when he, in turn, retired, the newspaper company was sold to the already substantial Auckland newspaper group controlled by Henry Brett, Thomson W Leys and William J Geddis. Geddis, a member of the Legislative Council, became managing-director, beginning a long family association with the newspaper. His son Trevor M Geddis, succeeded him as managing-director in 1921 and became editor in 1929, remaining in that position until 1951. Until 1982, Daily Telegraph ownership had remained in the hands of descendants of the three families that bought the newspaper in 1908, but in that year it merged with the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune. Two years later the new company became part of New Zealand News, then a Brierley Investments subsidiary. In 1988, New Zealand News sold its Hawke’s Bay interests to Wilson & Horton which, in turn, was bought by APN NZ in 1996. Although the companies behind the two Hawke’s Bay newspapers had come together in 1982, it was not until 1999 that the Daily Telegraph and Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune merged to become Hawke’s Bay Today. | ||
| Dunstan Times (edit) | DUNST | 1866 | 1948 | 1866 - 1948 | Otago | There are competing stories about the origins of the Dunstan Times – at what later became Clyde. The Otago Daily Times ran one version in February 1864: ‘The ‘Dunstan Times’ or the ‘Dunstan News’ redivivus, made its debut on Saturday morning.’ It went on to say: ‘It is a double crown sheet, tolerably well got up’. But the next sentence raises doubts about whether it was the Dunstan News reborn, or a completely new publication. It read: ‘The matter is of that style peculiar to a gold field, and infinitely better written than the rubbish that disgraced its predecessor.’ There is other evidence to suggest that the Dunstan News continued to at least December 1864. The Dunstan Times, a bi-weekly for a period, was run by George Fache for more than a quarter century. A Londoner, George Fache was attracted to the Southern Hemisphere by the Australian and New Zealand goldfields. After Gabriel’s Gully, he was part of the ‘rush’ to the Dunstan goldfield – and stayed. As well as running the Dunstan Times until 1895, he had an auctioneering and commission agency business in Clyde. The paper was later controlled by the Stevens family. In 1948, Stevens Bros amalgamated Clyde’s Dunstan Times, which they then owned, and the Lake County Mail in Queenstown with their Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette. The resulting Central Otago News was published twice weekly (Tuesdays and Thursdays), and based in Alexandra. As of 2015, the Lakes District and Central Otago News was a tabloid weekly, owned by Allied Press, publishers of the Otago Daily Times. | ||
| Ellesmere Guardian (edit) | EG | 1891 | 1983 | 1891 - 1945 | Canterbury | Launched in 1880, the Ellesmere Guardian was the second newspaper published in the Ellesmere area, Joseph Ivess having commenced the Ellesmere Advertiser just two days before. Both papers were published in Southbridge. The Advertiser didn’t see out the year. Charles Edmund Sherlock, the publisher of the Guardian, had previously worked on the Ashburton Mail before moving to Southbridge. In 1886 Robert George Park assumed control. He had been a partner in the business for several years. Park moved the Guardian office to Leeston. The next few years appear to have been difficult ones for the Guardian. Publication was suspended in the late 1880s and the paper changed hands frequently. Things improved in 1892 when William Zouch, formerly of the Ashburton Guardian, moved the paper back to Southbridge. Circulation soon rose from 800 to 1200 issues. In 1897 Cecil Rhys Thornton became editor. He was an ardent prohibitionist and used the paper to promote this cause. His zealousness landed him in court in 1899 when he was sued for libel for comments made in the paper. Thornton left to work on the Inangahua Times in 1904. Horace McMillan, a 19 year old reporter on the paper, bought the Guardian in 1908 and remained in charge until retiring in 1947. Under his management the paper flourished, becoming one of the better country newspapers in the Dominion. McMillan moved operations back to Leeston in 1916. The paper remained there until it merged with the Malvern Record to form the Central Canterbury News in 1983. Note: only two issues of the Guardian are known to exist before 1891. | ||
| Evening Post (edit) | EP | 8-Feb-1865 | 6-Jul-2002 | 1865 - 1965 | Wellington | The Evening Post was founded by Henry Blundell and began publication as a daily in Wellington on 8 February 1865. Blundell was born in Dublin in 1813 and worked for nearly 30 years at the Dublin Evening Mail. In 1860 he migrated with his family to Melbourne. Blundell moved to New Zealand in 1863 and worked on the Otago Daily Times. In 1864 he founded the Havelock Mail. However the Marlborough goldfields were failing at this time and the Mail only lasted a few months, closing in November the same year. Blundell, business partner David Curle, and Blundell’s two sons, John and Henry, then decided to try their luck in Wellington, which at that time did not have a daily newspaper. Wellington had just become the colony’s capital and the Blundells decided that this, combined with the state of the other newspapers being published in Wellington at the time, made starting a daily newspaper there a sound business proposition. The only rivals to the Post were the tri-weekly Wellington Independent and the New Zealand Advertiser, and the weekly New Zealand Spectator, which was in poor health and closed in August 1865. There was therefore a strong opportunity for a daily paper in Wellington.The Post was a family business, with father Henry being manager and principal leader writer, and sons Henry junior, John and Louis, who joined the firm on completing his schooling in Dunedin, being typesetters, canvassers and reporters. The new paper aimed to record every event ‘within a mile of Martin’s fountain’ which lay at the corner of Featherston Street and Lambton Quay. By focussing on local issues, attention to detail and high-quality writing the Post soon established itself as the leading Wellington paper, a position it did not relinquish during its long career. Its editorial policy was politically neutral. Unlike other papers of the time, which were established to publicise a particular political opinion, the Post was not aligned to any political factions and was therefore able to comment freely on political and other matters. As Blundell wrote in the Post’s first edition, ‘a liberal course of policy will be pursued and the bounds of moderation will not be overstepped in giving expression to the views entertained by the proprietors as journalists.’ Henry Blundell senior died in 1878 and the paper continued to be run by his sons, with Frank Gifford as editor. Perhaps because it was such a locally focussed paper-Wellington’s paper-the Post was able to outlast it various rivals over the years. The Post’s only serious competition was the Dominion, which began publication in September 1907. The Dominion was founded to be the voice of the conservative element in Wellington politics, and as such was at the opposite end of the political spectrum to the Post. This, combined with the fact that the Dominion was a morning rather than an evening paper, meant that serious competition with the Post was not an issue as each had its own niche in the capital city. The Blundell family retained control of the paper until the late 1960s. The 1970s saw a steady decline in the Post’s circulation and the Dominion, which had been somewhat in the Post’s shadow throughout its career, gradually eclipsed its rival. In 1972 ownership of the Post was combined with the Dominion and in 2002 the Post’s owners decided to close the paper and merge it with the Dominion to create the Dominion Post. The final edition of the Evening Post was published on 6 July 2002, ending what has been called a 137-year love affair with Wellington. | ||
| Evening Star (edit) | ESD | 1-Nov-1865 | 3-Nov-1979 | 1865 - 1945 | Otago | Dunedin’s population grew rapidly in the 1860s following the discovery of gold in Central Otago and the local newspaper scene was transformed. New Zealand first daily newspaper, the Otago Daily Times, began in 1861 and shortly afterwards Dunedin’s other long-lasting daily newspaper, the Evening Star was launched. The Star struggled financially in its early years and in 1869 passed into the hands of its creditors. However, soon afterwards George Bell purchased the newspaper and as owner and editor he placed the Star on a much sounder footing, seeing off several rivals in the evening field. In 1879 an issue of the Star covering a tragic fire in Dunedin’s Octagon sold 8,300 copies, thought to be a record at that time for a New Zealand newspaper. Bell retained sole ownership of the Star until he was well into his eighties, when he transferred ownership to his family, beginning a long-standing relationship between Bell’s descendants and the Star. Bell was succeeded as editor in 1894 by Mark Cohen, who already had a long association with the Star as a crusading journalist. Under Cohen the Star advocated social reform and was a vigorous supporter of Liberal policy. The Star flourished during Cohen’s editorship, and attracted notable contributors such as the Presbyterian minister and social reformer, Rutherford Waddell, who wrote a weekly column for the Star for 27 years. The Evening Star made a strong contribution to sporting journalism. In 1907 it began issuing a Saturday night sporting edition which evolved into the Star Sports, which for many years was published in tabloid form with distinctive yellow newsprint coversheets. The depression years of the early 1930s curbed plans for expansion and the outbreak of World War II also hindered growth. However, in the post-war period the Star entered an era of expansion much greater than any other in its history. Vic Cavanagh, perhaps better known as coach of Otago’s rugby team during their Ranfurly Shield tenure in the 1940s, was general manager from 1950 to 1973 and became an influential voice in the newspaper industry. From a high point in the early 1960s, when the Evening Star had a circulation of more than 30,000, the Star began to decline; in common with other evening newspapers competition from television was a key factor. In 1975 the Evening Star and Otago Daily Times companies merged to become Allied Press and on 3 November 1979 the Evening Star ceased as daily newspaper. The Star was transformed into a community newspaper and as at 2015 continues to be published in this format. | ||
| Feilding Star (edit) | Feilding Guardian | FS | 21-May-1879 | Oct-1939 | 1879 - 1934 | Manawatu - Wanganui | The Feilding Star was the first newspaper to publish in Feilding. The Feilding area had been developing through the 1870s driven by the settlement of the Manchester Block and the linking by rail of Feilding with other towns in the Manawatu and Horowhenua. The conditions were right for a newspaper to set up there. The paper, initially called the Feilding Guardian, was established by George Capper and David Curle in 1879. In 1882 the paper was sold to George Kirton and Augustus Robert Curtis, who changed the title to the Feilding Star. The paper became a daily in 1893 in response to increasing competition from newspapers in other towns in the area, particularly Palmerston North. In 1906 the Star was acquired by its best known owner, Frederick Pirani. Pirani had been a Member of the House of Representatives for Palmerston North from 1893 to 1902. Pirani was a radical Liberal whose combative style often got him embroiled in conflict, most notably with Seddon, the Premier and leader of his party. Consequently Seddon endorsed a rival candidate for Palmerston North for the 1899 election. Despite this Pirani retained his seat. The Feilding Star was not Pirani’s first venture into newspaper publishing. He had previously worked as a journalist and owned the Manawatu Standard and Hutt and Petone Chronicle. The Feilding Star ceased publication in October 1939 citing as the cause a newsprint shortage due to the War. | |
| Franklin Times (edit) | FRTIM | 1-Feb-1921 | 19-Jan-1971 | 1921 - 1945 | Auckland | The Franklin Times (known in its early days as the Pukekohe & Waiuku Times), one of South Auckland’s longest-lasting local newspapers, was published in Pukekohe from 1912 to 1971. On 8 March 1912 Pukekohe businessmen Richard Eames and William Cargill brought out the first issue of the Pukekohe & Waiuku Times. The new tabloid was just four pages long and came out once a week. As demand grew it increased in size and frequency, becoming bi-weekly from 1 October 1912 and tri-weekly from 5 July 1915. The Franklin Printing & Publishing Company acquired the Pukekohe & Waiuku Times in November 1914. The new owners changed the title to the Franklin & Pukekohe Times on 2 September 1919, then to the Franklin Times on 1 February 1921. Despite the changes of title, the volume numbering remained consistent throughout. The changes of title in part reflected broadening coverage. The original masthead shows the paper aimed to include Pukekohe, Waiuku, Mercer, Tuakau, Drury, Papakura and Bombay news. It then sought to reach into all parts of Franklin County. For some years it included a Papakura section on the back page, and sometimes also included Otahuhu and Manurewa news. In later years coverage reached southward across the Waikato River to include news from the northern parts of Raglan County. A short-lived companion title, the Pukekohe & Otahuhu Times came out between 13 April 1917 and 28 December 1917. A later companion title, the Tuakau and District Times, lasted from 10 March 1932 to 14 September 1939. In November 1964 the Franklin Times absorbed its almost equally long-lived small-town rival, the Waiuku News. (The 1965 masthead read: 'The Franklin Times, incorporating the Waiuku News. Circulating in the whole of Franklin County and parts of Raglan and Manukau Counties'). The last issue of the Franklin Times came out on 19 January 1971. It was then merged with the South Auckland News Advertiser to form the Franklin Times Advertiser. However, after a subsequent merger with the South Auckland Courier, the Franklin Times was revived as a stand-alone title between April 1974 and July 1979. | ||
| Free Lance (edit) | New Zealand Free Lance | NZFL | 1900 | 1960 | 1900 - 1920 | Wellington | The Free Lance was one of New Zealand’s most popular weekly, pictorial newspapers. It was first published in Wellington in 1900 by Geddis and Blomfield as a spin-off from their successful Auckland weekly, the NZ Observer and Free Lance. The publishers split the title, with the Auckland paper becoming the NZ Observer and the Wellington paper taking the name Free Lance. Despite its initial association with the Observer, the Free Lance soon developed as a separate publication with the Geddis family concentrating on the Free Lance and Blomfield the Observer. The editor James McRobert Geddis (1856-1935) later became sole proprietor and in 1920 the Geddis family formed a private company to run the paper. The Geddis family were involved with the management of the Free Lance until it was incorporated into the New Zealand Weekly News in 1960. Its demise left the Weekly News as the last pictorial weekly in New Zealand. The Free Lance was a typical weekly; conservative and mainstream with much coverage given to royalty, New Zealand scenery, high society and sport. It was noted for its political cartoons. It carried the work of some of the country’s top cartoonists including John Gilmour, Gordon Minhinnick, Tom Ellis (Tom Glover), E.F. Hiscocks and Stuart Peterson. The Free Lance was fortunate to begin publishing at the same time as there was a flowering of local cartooning talent. The Free Lance not only benefited from this but also played a significant role in fostering this talent and pictorial journalism in general. | |
| Gisborne Herald (edit) | GISH | Still being published | 1939 - 1950 | Gisborne | The owners of Napier's Hawke's Bay Herald, in partnership with others, set up the Poverty Bay Herald. The first issue of this bi-weekly morning paper was published in Gisborne on 5 January 1874. When the paper started publication Gisborne already had a newspaper, the Poverty Bay Standard (1872-1883). Like most New Zealand newspapers in the 19th century, it took the Herald some time to get established. In 1879 the paper nearly went into liquidation when the City of Glasgow Bank failed. However the Herald started to flourish in the 1880s. It proved too strong for its competitor, the Standard, which folded in 1883. The outright acquisition of the paper in 1884 by Allan Ramsay Muir gave it stability. Muir's father had worked on the earliest New Zealand newspaper, the New Zealand Gazette, as well as being one of the founders of the Wellington Independent (one of the country's most distinctive papers). Muir started working at the Herald in 1880 as a printer. He became a partner in 1883 and sole owner the year after. His descendants are still involved in the management of the paper today. There were a number of other papers published in Gisborne before 1940. The most noteworthy is the Gisborne Times (1896-1938) but none of them were able to compete with the Herald. In 1938 the Herald absorbed the Times and the following year the paper changed its name to the Gisborne Herald. The paper is still published and is one of the last privately operated daily newspapers in New Zealand. | |||
| Globe (edit) | GLOBE | 1-Jun-1874 | 1882 | 1874 - 1882 | Canterbury | The first attempt by the Christchurch morning paper, The Press, to enter the evening newspaper market took place in 1864. The owner of The Press, James Edward FitzGerald, launched the Theatre, which was published at six o’clock each evening. As well as advertising performances at the Royal Princess Theatre, it contained any significant news that had appeared since publication of The Press in the morning. The Theatre did not last long; it was replaced in 1864 by the Evening Post, a more substantial but also short-lived publication. In 1874 another effort was made by The Press to gain a foothold in the evening market. On 1 June 1874 the first issue of the Globe was published, in direct competition with the Star, the evening arm of the Lyttelton Times. A handbill advertising the Globe stated it would ‘aim at becoming a first-class family newspaper’ and that it was needed because ‘of an ever-increasing demand for the immediate publication of the latest telegraphic and other intelligence’. The Globe was published daily, cost a penny, and hoped to appeal to people whose daily travel and working hours meant they did not have time to read a newspaper until the evening. The key person behind the establishment of the Globe was Charles Alexander Pritchard. Pritchard did not come from a newspaper background but had begun investing in the Press Company in 1871 and eventually gained a majority interest. After the Globe had been running for several months Pritchard took over personal ownership of the newspaper, although it continued to be printed and distributed by The Press. In 1883 Pritchard sold the Globe back to The Press. Around this time The Press also purchased another Christchurch evening newspaper, the Telegraph, which had been established in the early 1880s. The Globe was merged with the Telegraph and publication continued under the masthead of the Telegraph. In 1893 the Telegraph was in turn replaced by Truth, an evening paper established in 1887 by Cecil Gurney according to Guy Scholefield (Newspapers in New Zealand, 1958). Truth was renamed the Evening News in 1909, possibly to distinguish it from the Wellington weekly, NZ Truth. In 1912 the editor of the Evening News, Edward C Huie, resigned and became the driving force in a vigorous new rival, the Sun. The Evening News was no match for the Sun and closed in 1917, ending the chain of Press-owned evening newspapers that had begun with the Globe. | ||
| Golden Bay Argus (edit) | GBARG | 1883 | 1915 | 1883 - 1911 | Nelson - Tasman | The Golden Bay Argus commenced publication in 1883 in the town of Collingwood. The Argus was subtitled the Motueka, Takaka and Collingwood Advertiser and in the earliest issue located, 27 October 1883, Thomas John Metcalfe is stated as the printer and publisher. Metcalfe had previously run the Lyell Argus and he also established the Motueka Herald in 1884. By June 1885 Richard George Peacock had taken over the Golden Bay Argus and his involvement continued until 1891. Ownership of the Argus then passed to George Henry Allan. In his first editorial Allan said the paper would ‘pursue a generally Liberal line’ and that he intended to ‘increase the size of the Argus to double its present size’. Allan included in the Argus supplements that contained significant Australian content; these provide an interesting illustration of the connections between the Australian and New Zealand publishing worlds at this time. In November 1904 a major fire destroyed much of Collingwood and the Nelson Evening Mail reported that ‘not a vestige of the Golden Bay Argus newspaper plant has been saved’. The Argus was printed in Takaka until new printing facilities were set up in Collingwood. Neighbouring Takaka was home to the Golden Bay Times, which had begun life as the Takaka News, Collingwood and Motueka Advertiser around 1889. In 1913 Allan bought the Times and in 1915 he amalgamated the Golden Bay Argus with the Times. The amalgamated paper continued under the title Golden Bay Times until 1938 when it was merged with the Motueka Star into the Star-Times. The Motueka-based Star-Times styled itself as ‘the morning newspaper of Nelson Province’ and aimed to be a daily alternative to the Nelson Evening Mail. Despite being a well-presented newspaper, it was not a success commercially and shortly after a title change to the Province in May 1939 it ceased publication. | ||
| Grey River Argus (edit) | GRA | 1866 | 1966 | 1866 - 1949 | West Coast | The Grey River Argus was a rarity amongst New Zealand newspapers in that it was open about its political affiliations. The Argus supported the Labour Movement. For many years the legend, “New Zealand’s pioneer Labor daily” appeared on the masthead. The Argus was the first newspaper published in Greymouth, the first issue appearing on 14 November 1865. The publisher, James Kerr (1834-1901), had worked on newspapers in Scotland, Melbourne and Dunedin before coming to Greymouth. He became well known throughout the West Coast through his involvement in local and national politics. He was a close friend of Richard Seddon’s and was a member of the Legislative Council. He remained the principal proprietor of the Argus until his death. Initially the Argus was published three times a week. In 1871 the paper became a daily. From 1870 to 1907 it published a weekly edition called the Weekly Argus. The Argus survived two fires and several floods in its first few years. The Argus was fortunate to have several very capable editors in the nineteenth century. These were William Henry Harrison (1831-1879) and Florence Romuald McCarthy (1834-1914). Harrison was editor from 1868 to 1879 and McCarthy from 1880 to 1914. They earned the Argus a national reputation for the quality of its journalism. Kerr’s son James became manager of the paper after his father’s death and in 1906 formed the Grey River Argus Company. In 1912 the other daily newspaper in Greymouth, the Greymouth Evening Star, considered buying a controlling share in the paper but decided that the price was too high. The next year the Federation of Labour began negotiating with the owners to buy the paper. Most of the New Zealand press were unsympathetic, often hostile, towards Labour. The Federation thought that they needed a paper of their own to counteract this. Buying the Argus made sense given the strong support that Labour enjoyed on the West Coast. Negotiations were protracted and it wasn’t till 1919 that the West Coast trade unions acquired the paper. However the Argus was, in effect, already a Labour paper by the time it was sold. In 1918 the paper allowed the Grey Labour Representation Committee to use its columns to support Harry Holland contest the Grey seat in that year's election. Future Prime Minister Peter Fraser was responsible for the Labour campaign on the West Coast and wrote editorials for the Argus during this time. The Argus was considered to have contributed to the election of Labour candidates in 1918 for the seats of Grey and Buller. The early years of the Argus under union management were difficult. The cost of newsprint was high, advertisers were reluctant to use a Labour paper and a few months after assuming control, fire destroyed the Argus office and plant. This was quickly rebuilt by volunteers. The Hokitika Guardian printed the Argus during this time, ensuring that publication was maintained. The Argus had one rival, the Greymouth Evening Star. The Star began publishing in March 1866. The two papers frequently attacked each other. The Star editorials referred to the Argus as “Labour-Socialists” and the Argus called the Star “Tory-Nationalists”. In 1966 the Grey River Argus Company was taken over by Buller Westland Publishing Company and the paper was relaunched in February of that year with the new title of the Argus Leader. The Labour affiliation was toned down. “New Zealand’s pioneer Labor daily” was dropped from the front page. These changes failed to save the Argus and it closed in November. The following notice appeared on the front page of the last issue, “Last evening, the directors of the Buller Westland Publishing Co. Ltd., decided that the “Argus Leader” would cease publication with this morning’s issue.” | ||
| Greymouth Evening Star (edit) | Greymouth Evening Star and Brunnerton Advocate | GEST | 3-Jan-1901 | Still being published | 1901 - 1950 | West Coast | The Greymouth Evening Star was the second newspaper to be established in Greymouth, although it was Greymouth’s first daily newspaper. Two important figures in the early life of the Star were James Snyder Browne and his son Montagu Lindsay Browne who is named as the sole proprietor of the newspaper in its issue of 1 June 1869. James Snyder Browne was one of the founders of Hokitika’s Evening Star and was later involved with a number of other newspapers, including being editor of the New Zealand Herald. John Tyrrell, Robert Caldwell Reid and Joseph Ivess, founder of numerous newspapers throughout the country, were other early owners of the newspaper but Joseph Petrie was the most enduring figure in the early life of the Star. Petrie purchased the Star in 1875 and was involved with the newspaper until his death in 1908. Petrie combined his newspaper career with an active political life, including being mayor of Greymouth and an MP. In 1891 the Greymouth Evening Star Company was floated, with 15 of the pioneering 75 shareholders being local publicans. Management of the Star continued to be characterised by stability and long-service; between 1892 and 1961 there were only two managers, Frederick Hamilton Kilgour, followed by Andrew Joseph Wilson. Another long-serving staff member was Arch Kibble, editor from 1921-1946. The Star’s long term competitor was the Greymouth morning paper, the Grey River Argus, which ran from 1865 to 1966. The Star considered buying control of the Argus in 1912 but decided against it and eventually the Argus was bought by the labour movement. The conservative Star and the left-wing Argus engaged in frequent editorial attacks on each other. Allied Press, publisher of the Otago Daily Times, bought a controlling interest in the Greymouth Evening Star in 1995. Two years later the Star started a weekly newspaper called the Coaster which ran until 2001 when it merged with the West Coast Messenger. In 2006 the layout of the Greymouth Evening Star was updated and the name changed to the Greymouth Star. | |
| Hastings Standard (edit) | HAST | 1896 | 1910 | 1896 - 1910 | Hawkes Bay | Hastings’s first regular newspaper was the Hastings Star, which appeared in 1886 but only lasted for two years. Despite having a population of around 2,000 by 1890, another newspaper did not emerge until the Hastings Standard appeared in 1896. The Standard was started by William Arnott and Anthony Cashion, who were both from Greymouth. The Standard was embroiled in an early dispute with the United Press Association over what it saw as the charging of an exorbitant fee to join the Association. The owner of the neighbouring Napier newspaper the Daily Telegraph, Edward Knowles, was also at the time Chairman of the Association and allegations were made that he had used his position to prevent the successful establishment of a potential rival. A lower fee was eventually agreed, but the Standard’s early years were blighted by financial difficulties. At one stage, after staff were not paid for six weeks, continued publication was only ensured after subscribers and advertisers rallied to provide the necessary funds. After various changes of ownership, in 1907 William Whitlock, who had previously published the Egmont Settler in Stratford, acquired the Standard along with a business partner. Three generations of the Whitlock family were subsequently involved in the running of the Standard and its successors and were instrumental in turning it into one of the country’s leading provincial dailies. In 1910 Whitlock accepted an offer from a consortium backed by local farming interests to incorporate the Standard into a new venture, the Hawke’s Bay Tribune. The first issue of the new title was published on 12 December 1910 and a period of expansion and technological development began. The 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake dealt a severe blow to both Hastings and the Tribune. The newspaper’s office was severely damaged and production ceased for close to two weeks, although small daily bulletins were issued by the Tribune. Tribune reporter A L ‘Darby’ Ryan was killed when the clock tower of the Hastings Post Office collapsed on him; reportedly, when his body was recovered from the rubble, a pencil and pad were in his hands and his pocket contained ‘copy’ collected during his morning round. The printing plant of the Napier morning newspaper, the Hawke’s Bay Herald, was completely destroyed by the earthquake and the Tribune took over printing of the Herald. The earthquake and the Depression years took a heavy toll on the Herald and in 1937 it was merged with the Tribune. The new paper was called the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune and its first issue appeared on 16 January 1937. In 1982 ownership of the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune and its long-time rival, the Daily Telegraph of Napier, was amalgamated. The two newspapers continued to be published separately, but in 1999 they were merged to become Hawke’s Bay Today. With a history that stretches back to the publication of the first issue of the Hawke’s Bay Herald in 1857, Hawke’s Bay Today is the third oldest newspaper currently being published in New Zealand, as of 2014. | ||
| Hauraki Plains Gazette (edit) | HPGAZ | 1921 | 1921 - 1950 | Waikato | The Hauraki Plains succeeded the Ohinemuri Gazette in August 1921, incorporating it into the new title. Influencing this change was a desire to capture and acknowledge the importance of the newspaper to the wider region: ‘It will be readily conceded that the name Ohinemuri Gazette by no means conveys an adequate indication of the district over which this journal circulates, or its sphere of influence’ (1 August 1921: 2). While Ōhinemuru had grown around the founding of a goldfield in 1875, the wider Hauraki region also had a rich history of the kauri-timber industry, gold mining and industrial conflict. The change in the name of the title, was a decisive move to connect with and reflect the entire region, rather than just the Ōhinemuru community. In 1931, owner William Dennis Nicholas began the Coromandel & Mercury Bay Gazette. Nicholas then sold the business in 1939 to Rei Lancelot Darley, previously editor and manager of the Pahiatua Herald. In 1951, Darley began publishing the weekly Waihi Gazette as well, firstly in Waihi and then in Paeroa. By 1956 the Thames Valley Newspapers’ office in Paeroa was publishing the Hauraki Plains Gazette on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; the Coromandel & Mercury Bay Gazette, produced as a separate publication again after a period incorporated in the Hauraki Plains Gazette, every Tuesday; and the Waihi Gazette on Thursday. In 1961, with a two unit flat-bed Cossar press recently installed, Rei Darley entered a five-year association with Waikato and King Country Press Ltd, owners of the Waikato Times. Thames Valley Newspapers were then shareholders in the group that owned the Morrinsville Star, Putaruru News and Taupo Times. At the end of the period, Darley withdrew from the association and the next year opened an office in Thames, renaming the Coromandel & Mercury Bay Gazette as the Thames and Peninsula Gazette. The re-positioned paper did well, but rising costs forced further changes. In 1977, a new publication, the Thames Valley Gazette, incorporated both the Hauraki Plains Gazette and Thames and Peninsula Gazette. The Waihi Gazette moved to a free circulation in 1986, the same year Rei Darley died. Subsequently, an offer by Independent Newspapers Ltd to buy the company was accepted. Their subsidiary, Hauraki Publishers, took over the Thames Valley Gazette and Waihi Gazette in December 1986. In August 1988, the Ohinemuri Gazette had, after 107 years, its second-to-last name change to Paeroa Gazette and moved from broadsheet to a tabloid format. Finally, a decade later, the paper merged with the Thames Star in 1998, becoming the Thames Valley Gazette again. It survived less than a year. | |||
| Hawera & Normanby Star (edit) | HNS | 1880 | 1924 | 1880 - 1924 | Taranaki | The Hawera & Normanby Star was founded in 1880 by Patrick Galvin, Joseph Innes and J C Yorke. Southern Taranaki was being opened up at this time and they saw an opportunity to establish a paper there. All three had worked together on the New Zealand Times in Wellington and their partnership was forged there. The first issue appeared on 10 April 1880 and the paper was published twice a week. In 1881 Galvin retired due to ill health and his place was taken by Joseph Armit. However, Galvin continued to be involved with newspapers for the rest of his life, founding the short-lived Hawera Morning Post in 1894 and contributing to the New Zealand Times. The Star saw off a challenge early on from Joseph Ivess, publisher of the nearby Patea Mail. Ivess had been publishing the Patea Mail since 1875 and had ambitions to establish a chain of papers in Taranaki. He tried to persuade Galvin not to set up in Hawera. When Galvin persisted, he opened an office in Hawera, from which he briefly published the Hawera Times. However the residents of Hawera preferred the Star and Ivess abandoned his new paper after two issues. The Star progressed steadily in its first two decades. From October 1881 it was published three times a week. In 1882 a new press was installed and the paper began daily publication. In 1885 it started the Egmont Star, a weekly compendium of items from the parent paper for distribution to the backblocks of Taranaki. The Egmont Star ceased in 1914. In 1895 the Hawera Star survived a fire that destroyed the paper's premises and plant. In 1889 Yorke became sole proprietor; in 1893 he sold the Star to the paper's editor, William Alfred Parkinson. Parkinson ran the paper until his death in 1920. After his death, the newspaper continued to be run under the company he established, W A Parkinson & Company Ltd. On 12 June 1924 the title of the paper was changed to the Hawera Star, and under that title, it continued as a daily until 1977. | ||
| Hawera Star (edit) | HAWST | 1924 | Still being published | 1924 - 1935 | Taranaki | The Hawera Star was founded as the Hawera & Normanby Star in 1880 by Patrick Galvin, Joseph Innes and James Yorke. The first issue appeared on 10 April 1880 and the paper was published twice a week, until October 1881, when it became a tri-weekly. In 1882 a new press was installed and the paper began daily publication. By 1889 Yorke was the sole proprietor. Four years later he sold the Star to the paper's editor, William Alfred Parkinson, who ran the paper until his death in 1920. After Parkinson’s death, the newspaper continued to be run under the private company he established, W A Parkinson & Co. Robert Page, Parkinson’s son-in-law, and C H Walker were directors of the company. After Walker left in 1922, Page’s wife and three of her brothers bought into it. Some time later Percy Bond, the general manager of the Star, also acquired shares in the company. On 12 June 1924 the title of the paper was changed to the Hawera Star. This appears to have been a pragmatic decision, as the change to a new press meant ‘the old style [of title was] too cumbersome in present circumstances’ (12 June 1924: 6). The pages of the paper were also reduced in size. The new press was a Cossar, designed by Scotsman Thomas Cossar (1875–1952) to be packed flat and shipped around the world, and was a significant investment for the owners. In 1934 the Hawera Star Publishing Company was established by a group of local residents, including James Campbell, then mayor of Hawera. The company purchased the paper and continued to run the Hawera Star until it was taken over by Independent Newspapers Ltd in 1987. Like many local newspapers, the Star struggled to attract skilled staff, particularly during the Second World War, and into the 1960s. However, once there some staff stayed for decades, such as Len Ablett, who came from Christchurch in 1927 and stayed at the paper until he retired as editor in 1962. Some former staff went on to have prominent careers in the New Zealand media, such as journalist and cartoonist Harry Dansey (1920–1979), journalist Pat Booth (1929-2018), and radio journalist and broadcaster Joan Faulkner Blake, all of whom worked at the Star early in their careers. According to David Hetherington (editor from 1962-1975), well-known New Zealand author Ronald Hugh Morrieson’s first published work was a local news item about a nocturnal monster haunting South Road. January 1972 saw the Star switch to publishing news on the front page. The newspaper continued as a daily until 1977, when the Saturday issue was stopped, because it was too expensive to continue with. A more significant change took place in October 1978 when the Star became a free community newspaper, published on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It was distributed to everyone between Pihama (34 kms to the west of Hawera) and Patea (28 kms to the south), and circulation rose from 3,000 to 7,000. During the 1980s the newspaper began to be printed at Wanganui Newspapers, rather than at Hawera itself. In 1980 publication dropped to twice-weekly, and in 1984, the paper became formally known as the Star. Twenty years later, now owned by Fairfax, the paper was renamed the South Taranaki Star and issued weekly. In 2014 the title was changed again to the Taranaki Star and as of 2020 it continued to be published under that name every Thursday. | ||
| Hawkes Bay Herald (edit) | Hawke’s Bay Herald and Ahuriri Advocate, Hawke's Bay Tribune, Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune | HBH | 1857 | 1937 | 1857 - 1904 | Hawkes Bay | Sir Donald McLean first proposed a Hawke's Bay newspaper to advocate for provincial separation from Wellington. McLean was one of the first settlers of the fledgling district of Ahuriri, as it was called at the time. Another settler, James Wood, took up the challenge and published the first issue of the Hawke's Bay Herald and Ahuriri Advocate in Napier on 24 September 1857. The campaigning for separation was successful and Hawke's Bay became a separate province in 1858. Wood became the official provincial government printer and the Herald also served as the medium for government notices. The "Ahuriri Advocate" part of the paper's title was dropped. After first being published weekly, the paper became bi-weekly in 1861. It became a daily in 1871 when Wood sold out to four employees, including William Carlile who had been appointed editor in 1870. The Hawke's Bay Weekly Courier was a weekly offshoot of the Herald. It was established in 1879 and lasted until 1897. Both papers survived a disastrous fire that destroyed the Herald offices in 1886. A larger newspaper was produced after new machinery was installed in 1926. The Herald strongly advocated for the region's advancement and promoted projects including the Wellington-Napier railway and the construction of water and sewerage systems. The February 1931 Napier earthquake spelt the end of the Herald as a separate entity. The quake and subsequent fires completely destroyed the printing plant. The Hastings newspaper, the Hawke's Bay Tribune, took over printing the Herald. In January 1937 the papers merged to form the Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, with the last issue of the Herald published on 16 January 1937. In 1999 the Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune was merged with the long-established Napier paper, the Daily Telegraph, to become Hawke's Bay Today. | |
| Hawkes Bay Herald Tribune (edit) | HBHETR | 1937 | 1999 | 1937 - 1950 | Hawkes Bay | The Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune is the result of the 1937 amalgamation between two existing titles, the Hawke’s Bay Herald and the Hawke’s Bay Tribune. Sir Donald McLean first proposed a Hawke's Bay newspaper to advocate for provincial separation from Wellington. Another settler, James Wood, took up the challenge and published the first issue of the Hawke's Bay Herald and Ahuriri Advocate in Napier on 24 September 1857. The first issue of the Hawke’s Bay Tribune, incorporating the Hastings Standard, came later, on 12 December 1910. The February 1931 Napier earthquake completely destroyed the Herald’s printing plant. The Hastings newspaper, the Hawke's Bay Tribune, took over printing the Herald. The earthquake and the Depression years took a heavy toll on the Herald and in 1937 it was merged with the Tribune. The new paper was called the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune and its first issue appeared on 16 January 1937. In 1982 ownership of the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune and its long-time rival, the Daily Telegraph of Napier, was amalgamated. The two newspapers continued to be published separately, but in 1999 they were merged to become Hawke’s Bay Today. | ||
| Hawkes Bay Times (edit) | HBT | 1861 | 1874 | 1861 - 1874 | Hawkes Bay | The Hawke’s Bay Times, started to oppose the views of landowners favoured by the Hawke’s Bay Herald, went on the attack in its first weekly issue in July 1861. The Hawke’s Bay Herald, used to holding sway in Napier and through the new province’s country areas, was quick to respond. ‘We observe that the editor, in his opening remarks, broadly insinuates that the Herald has hitherto been under government influence, and has consequently allowed glaring acts of mis-government to pass unnoticed - hence the necessity for another paper. Our shoulders, however, are quite broad enough to bear all this sort of thing, which we looked forward to as a matter of course.‘ The Hawke’s Bay Times struggled, and at various times appeared twice and three times weekly but was most often a weekly. After a period when it did not appear, the paper’s third owner, R Coupland Harding, who is best known for his typographical skills and the invaluable Typo journal, kept it in print as a bi-weekly for more than another year before closing at the end of 1874. Harding was an advocate of land reform and temperance and his ownership was also notable for the coverage he gave to Maori affairs, in Maori. ‘Nga Hua o te Mohiotanga ma nga Tangata Maori’ (The Fruits of Knowledge for Maori) appeared on page 3 of each Tuesday and Friday issue of the paper for some months in 1874. When the columns began in May, Harding wrote that they were introduced, ‘in accordance with the strongly expressed desire of a number of the principal resident natives, who have intimated their willingness to give their support to the journal in the ordinary pakeha fashion, and finding numerous subscribers among their people’. The columns included letters to the editor, news of hui held at Rotorua and elsewhere, parliamentary and court news, temperance movement reports and, more prosaically, current sheep, poultry, wheat and flour prices. Citing financial difficulties, the Hawke’s Bay Times ceased publication at the end of December 1874. The following February, the Grey River Argus noted: ‘The Hawke’s Bay Maoris have purchased the plant of the ‘Hawke’s Bay Times’ with which to publish a newspaper in the Native language.’ Another paper quoted £750 as the price (over $95,000 today). | ||
| Hawkes Bay Tribune (edit) | HBTRIB | 1910 | 1937 | 1910 - 1937 | Hawkes Bay | The first issue of the Hawke’s Bay Tribune, incorporating the Hastings Standard, was published on 12 December 1910. William Whitlock of the Standard continued to print and publish the new paper. The 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake dealt a severe blow to both Hastings and the Tribune. The newspaper’s office was severely damaged and production ceased for close to two weeks, although small daily bulletins were issued by the Tribune. Tribune reporter A L ‘Darby’ Ryan was killed when the clock tower of the Hastings Post Office collapsed on him; reportedly, when his body was recovered from the rubble, a pencil and pad were in his hands and his pocket contained ‘copy’ collected during his morning round. The printing plant of the Napier morning newspaper, the Hawke’s Bay Herald, was completely destroyed by the earthquake and the Tribune took over printing of the Herald. The earthquake and the Depression years took a heavy toll on the Herald and in 1937 it was merged with the Tribune. The new paper was called the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune and its first issue appeared on 16 January 1937. In 1982 ownership of the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune and its long-time rival, the Daily Telegraph of Napier, was amalgamated. The two newspapers continued to be published separately, but in 1999 they were merged to become Hawke’s Bay Today. | ||
| Hokitika Guardian (edit) | Guardian; Hokitika Guardian and Evening Star | HOG | 1917 | 1940 | 1917 - 1940 | West Coast | Following the discovery of gold on the West Coast, a vigorous newspaper industry developed in Hokitika. Hokitika’s first newspaper was the West Coast Times, which was founded by John Tyrrell in May 1865. The Times’ most prominent early rival was the Evening Star, established by Joseph Klein and James Snyder Browne. Guy Scholefield (Newspapers in New Zealand, 1958 p. 243) notes that by 1868 Hokitika ‘had two morning dailies, two evening dailies and three weeklies … a heavy burden, surely, for such a small community’. In December 1882 David Curle (1837-1917) started the Hokitika Guardian. Curle had helped Henry Blundell set up the Evening Post in Wellington in 1865 and had been involved with a number of other newspapers including the Hokitika Daily News which ran briefly from 1868-1869. After the death of Klein in 1884 Curle bought out the Guardian’s competitor in the evening market, the Evening Star, and amalgamated the two newspapers. The Guardian became a daily in 1888. Curle sold his interest in the newspaper in 1893 to John Samuel Dawes (d. 1943) who acted as both editor and owner. In December 1897 a major fire destroyed the Guardian’s office although the printing press survived. The Guardian had an at times acrimonious relationship with its long-standing rival the West Coast Times. Differing political allegiances were a source of tension; after Tom Seddon replaced his father Richard as MP for Westland in 1906 the Times referred to the Guardian as the ‘Seddon News’ and its ‘columns of obviously faked wishy-washy twaddle’. Eventually however economic realities resulted in the two newspapers being merged in 1917, with the new full title being the Hokitika Guardian and Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. The Guardian moved to tabloid size in 1950 and placed news rather than advertising on its front page. In May 1988 the Guardian was replaced by a new era West Coast Times which had ambitions to be a regional newspaper, distributed free for two years from Karamea to Haast, with a circulation of 12,000. However, the expanded newspaper only lasted just over six months, with the Times’ owner going into receivership. The West Coast Times was revived in March 1989 under the leadership of director/editor Tony Smith, who had a background in the computer industry. The Greymouth Evening Star took control of the Times in 1997 and printing of the newspaper was moved to Greymouth. Then in February 2008 the Times changed its name back to the Hokitika Guardian. Along with the Greymouth Star, the Guardian, as of 2020, was part of the Allied Press group. | |
| Horowhenua Chronicle (edit) | HC | 1910 | 1910 - 1917 | Manawatu - Wanganui | The paper had a complicated genesis. In Shannon in 1893, William C Nation, well-known in spiritualist circles, began the tri-weekly Manawatu Farmer and Horowhenua County Chronicle, with his son Charles. Nation had previously worked for the Nelson Colonist and the New Zealand Times and had owned the Wairarapa Standard. In 1896 the well-known newspaper ‘planter’ Joseph Ivess arrived in nearby Levin and began the Manawatu Express and Horowhenua County Advertiser, selling it almost immediately to William J Reid and John McKellop. The Nations responded by moving their plant to Levin, buying in turn the Manawatu Express from Reid and McKellop and absorbing it into the Manawatu Farmer, which continued as a tri-weekly as the town grew. In 1908 David S Papworth began the short-lived bi-weekly, the Levin Times. This did not survive and Papworth was then briefly manager, editor and reporter of the Manawatu Farmer. In October the same year the Evening Post reported the court case in which Papworth claimed £500 damages (about $34,000 today) from the Horowhenua Publishing Company for wrongful dismissal. The company claimed ‘disloyalty, negligence, and incompetency’; the judge, in awarding £225 to Papworth, suggested the jury might have reasonably taken the view that ‘the company was anxious to sell the property and to get rid of the defendant for the purpose of facilitating the sale’. Ironically, it was Papworth, possibly using some of the money awarded him, who bought the Manawatu Farmer. In 1909, he renamed it the Horowhenua Daily Chronicle. Herbert G Kerslake and Robert H Billens were the next owners, buying the paper in 1917. With wartime paper shortages, it was published tri-weekly as the Levin Chronicle until daily publication was resumed in 1923. Before Levin was connected to electricity in 1924 the paper’s printing presses and linotypes were water-powered. The waste waster was piped out to the street gutter. In 1944, L A Humphrey, who began his newspaper career as a Chronicle paper boy in 1920, became a director of what was now Kerslake, Billens and Humphrey. Over the years the Daily Chronicle consolidated its position in Levin and Horowhenua, as the town’s population grew strongly from the 1940s to the 1960s. Kerslake, Billens and Humphrey became, in 1960, part of the United Publishing and Printing Company (UPP), headed by the Rotorua Post’s Ray Smith. Wilson & Horton acquired all the shares in UPP in 1985. A decade later Wilson & Horton, in response to a share raid by Brierley Investments, welcomed the Irish media company Independent Newspapers Plc (INP) as a major shareholder. INP quickly gained control and by April 1998 wholly owned Wilson & Horton. In 2001, INP sold its shareholding to APN News and Media, an Australian media company it partly owned. In early 2007 the Daily Chronicle switched from broadsheet to tabloid format and, interestingly, given subsequent developments, won the 2007 PANPA (Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association) Newspaper of the Year Award for newspapers of under 15,000 circulation. The next year APN announced that the Chronicle was ending six days a week publication and would be distributed free to every household in Levin and surrounding districts, on Wednesday and Saturdays. | |||
| Hot Lakes Chronicle (edit) | HLC | 1895 | 1910 | 1895 - 1910 | Bay of Plenty | In early June 1885 the New Zealand Herald’s Rotorua correspondent wrote: ‘The first copy of our local paper, appropriately styled the Hot Lakes Chronicle, will probably be issued on Saturday first [6 June], as a weekly production. The proprietor, Mr Lechuer, says he has met with every encouragement and is sanguine of its success.’ Little is known about the original owner of Rotorua’s first newspaper, but the first months of publication were not without drama. In November the New Zealand Herald ran this item: ‘On behalf of the Hot Lakes Chronicle, a notice was posted at Ohinemutu stating that the paper will not be printed this morning, nor probably for a week, as the printer is drunk.’ An early part-owner, Peter A Crawford, was later proprietor and editor of the Opotiki Herald from 1903 until his death in 1928. Francis F Watt from Montrose in Scotland, the son of the owner of several Glasgow newspapers, spent time in Australia and America before arriving in Rotorua in 1895 and purchasing an interest in the Hot Lakes Chronicle. He was sole owner when he died in 1900, his wife continuing to run the paper for a period. The Cyclopedia of New Zealand (Auckland Provincial District) noted: ‘During the tourist season of 1901 it was published as a bi-weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but reverted to the Saturday issue for the winter months. It is double demy, and has eight columns of reading matter, apart from advertisements. The paper is now edited and the business conducted by Mr. Watt's widow, who has a jobbing plant and does the local printing trade, besides carrying on the business of general stationer and news agent.’ David Gardner, also a Scotsman, owned the Hot Lakes Chronicle from 1902 to his death in 1918. Two years earlier he merged the Hot Lakes Chronicle and the Rotorua Times which had begun as the bi-weekly Wonderland Gazette and Rotorua Times in 1906 and had been a daily since 1910. R A Gardner managed the merged evening daily, now the Rotorua Chronicle, after his father’s death. Oswald Walter Exall edited the newspaper from 1918 until his death in 1925; he was followed by C H Worthington until 1931. In 1931, the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty Publishing Company paid £10,000 (just over $1 million today) for the Rotorua Chronicle, changed publication to mornings, and renamed the paper the Rotorua Morning Post. First editor of the renamed paper was, albeit briefly, Lyonel George Ashton. E G Webber was editor from 1932 until 1940. He spent the next five years as editor of the NZEF Times and as a war correspondent and had a distinguished post-war newspaper career. In 1947, when H Lawson Smith, previously a reporter on the Otago Daily Times and Manawatu Standard, was editor, the paper changed back to evening publication as the Rotorua Post. In 1953 it was one of the first New Zealand newspapers to carry front page news. As of 2014, the Rotorua Post was a morning daily owned by the APN Group. | ||
| Huntly Press and District Gazette (edit) | HPDG | 1912 | 1995 | 1912 - 1932 | Waikato | The first issue of the Huntly Press and District Gazette was printed in May 1910 by James Henry Claridge (1862-1946). Claridge was a compositor, editor and publisher who founded a number of newspapers in New Zealand including the Eltham Argus and Kaponga District Advertiser (1897), the Martinborough Star (1904), the Waipukurau Press (1905), the Taumarunui Press (1906), the Morrinsville Star and Matamata Gazette (1911), the Otorohanga Times (1912), and the Tuakau Press (1916). His most unsuccessful paper was the Pio Post (1920), which only lasted for one issue. Claridge learnt the newspaper trade during the 17 years he spent at the Hawera Star. He left in 1897 when he bought his first newspaper in Eltham. Claridge’s large family supported his career by carrying out tasks such as hand-setting type. Like many early newspapers, the first issues of the Huntly Press were printed using an Albion cast iron hand press and it came out weekly. Claridge did not own the Huntly Press for long. He sold it in 1911 to Walter H Hutchinson, a journalist at the Hawera & Normanby Star. The change in ownership from Hutchinson to the newly formed Huntly Press Co around 1912 and then to the Huntly Printing and Publishing Company in 1926 was the start of an era where the paper was managed on behalf of a number of shareholders. The newspaper continued as the Huntly Press and District Gazette until 1977. For the majority of this period it remained a weekly, except for a short period in the early 1930s when it was published bi-weekly. From the late 1970s, the masthead changed regularly, first to the Press, then the Huntly Press, the Huntly and Ngaruawahia Press, back to the Huntly Press and finally, in 1991, it became known as the Huntly and Districts Press. The Press continued to be published every Wednesday. In July 1993 the editorial team introduced a free weekend title called Expressions. Promoted as ‘being full of positive news about our town’, it was delivered to 6,500 homes in the Huntly region. In April 1994, the publishers decided to close Expressions and to make the Huntly Press a free weekly paper from 10 May 1994. Unfortunately, the paper only lasted a year after that, closing in May 1995. At the time it closed, it was owned by the Wilson & Horton Group, owners of the New Zealand Herald. | ||
| Hutt News (edit) | HN | 1927 | 1972 | 1927 - 1948 | Wellington | The Hutt News is one of New Zealand’s earliest and longest running community newspapers. It was established by Walter Harold Smith in 1927. Smith, a retired farmer, thought the time was right for Lower Hutt to have its own paper. The neighbouring borough of Petone had managed to sustain a newspaper, the Hutt and Petone Chronicle, since 1887. By the 1920s Lower Hutt’s population was approaching that of Petone’s. The Hutt News was first issued in April 1927 under the auspices of the local Businessmen’s Association with 2500 copies posted to households and businesses in Lower Hutt. In 1928 Smith was joined by James and William Kerr from the Petone Chronicle. Together they formed the Hutt Printing and Publishing Company to produce a new version of the Hutt News. Smith remained as manager with William Kerr assisting him while his brother stayed with the Chronicle. The Kerr family had long been involved with newspapers. The father, James Kerr (1834-1901), had worked on papers in Scotland, Australia and Otago before establishing the Grey River Argus in Greymouth in 1865. James, his son, managed the Argus before buying the Petone Chronicle in 1912. William had worked on the Argus and the New Zealand Times. The paper thrived as the population of the area grew rapidly in the 1940s and 1950s although production was threatened during the War due to staff shortages. The Hutt News had to rely on printers from the Trentham Military Camp to keep the paper going. In 1948 William Kerr became the Managing Director after the death of Walter Smith. In 1953 the Hutt Printing and Publishing Company took over the Petone Chronicle and continued to publish that paper until 1967. In 1961 William Kerr died and his son Ted succeeded him as Managing Director. In 1963 the paper was sold to Blundell Brothers, publishers of the Evening Post. The Hutt News became part of Independent Newspapers Limited (INL) in 1972 after they bought the Blundell’s company. Ownership changed again in 2003 when Fairfax bought INL. | ||
| Hutt Valley Independent (edit) | HVI | 1911 | 1933 | 1911 - 1919 | Wellington | The Hutt Valley Independent was started by Angus McCurdy in 1911. McCurdy was a significant figure in the development of Upper Hutt, both socially and politically. To him can be attributed the first Town Board in 1907, the first cinema, the debate for gas lighting within Upper Hutt and the first newspaper, the Hutt Valley Independent. McCurdy went on to become the first Mayor of Upper Hutt in 1926. The Hutt Valley Independent documents the radical changes happening in Upper Hutt during the period 1911-1933; public services such as gas lighting and the establishment of a borough council being two examples. As it was the only community newspaper available at that time, it is a key resource for researchers and genealogists. | ||
| Inangahua Times (edit) | IT | 1875 | 6-Jun-1942 | 1877 - 1942 | West Coast | The Inangahua Times was published in Reefton from 1875 until it ceased publication in 1942. Initially it was issued three times a week, but by 1891 it came out daily. The Times was started by William Joseph Potts. Potts had been involved with other newspapers on the West Coast. In 1873 he had edited Grey Valley Times at Ahaura. In 1874 he started the Reefton Courier but this didn't last out the year. Potts owned the Times until his death in 1901. His wife ran the paper after his death. The Times had to compete with several other newspapers in Reefton. The main rival was the Inangahua Herald which had begun three years before the Times in 1872. The Times eventually absorbed the Herald in 1936. In 1888 Reefton got a third daily newspaper, the Reefton Guardian. Reefton's population at this time was about 2,000 which was not enough to support three newspapers. The Guardian was the first to go under, probably in 1894. It's not clear why a small town like Reefton had three daily newspapers. Certainly the 1890s was a flourishing time for newspaper publishing in New Zealand (newspaper publication peaked about 1910). Also it's likely that Reefton was seen as a town with prospects. It had been a boom town in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1888 Reefton became the first place in New Zealand to have its own public electricity supply and in 1892 it was connected by rail to Greymouth. The Times, like many other small town newspapers in New Zealand, could not cope with the restrictions and shortages that the Second World War brought and it published its last issue on 6 June 1942. The Times was revived as a weekly in 1946 under the title Inangahua-Murchison Times. This paper ceased in 1956. | ||
| Kaikoura Star (edit) | Kaikoura Star and North Canterbury and South Marlborough News; Kaikoura Star and Kaikoura County Gazette and Recorder | KAIST | 1880 | Still being published | 1880 - 1950 | Canterbury | Kaikōura’s first newspaper, the Kaikoura Herald and East Coast Advertiser, started as an off-shoot of the Marlborough Press. In 1869 it was taken over by a local school teacher, J B Williams, who ran it until 1872, when he closed it down due to a lack of local support. The town was then without a newspaper for eight years until George Renner, the former editor of Gore’s Mataura Ensign, moved to the region and established the Kaikoura Star and North Canterbury and South Marlborough News. Renner was frank about the newspaper’s political views, writing in his first editorial: ‘The Hall Government shall have our support so long as they act in a manner calculated, in our opinion, to benefit the colony and extricate it from its present uncomfortable impecunious position.’ (Marlborough Daily Times, 9 November 1880: 2) Renner published the four-page newspaper twice a week. While he was proprietor, Renner tried out a number of masthead designs, finally settling on a graphic of a star with mountains in the background. In 1905 Renner sold the Star, by now an eight-page edition, to Wilfred Beach Ingram and moved north to establish a new paper, the Pahiatua Era. After a year, Renner returned to Kaikōura where he soon found his own name in print when he and Ingram appeared in court in 1907. Ingram testified that part of the sale agreement was that Renner could not return to journalism in competition with him in the future. However two of George Renner’s sons, Alfred and Cyril, had started a rival newspaper called the Kaikoura Sun in 1906. Ingram was concerned that Renner senior was writing for the Sun, and although Renner insisted he was not being paid, Ingram won the case. In 1910 the newspaper was bought by Harold Flower. Not long after, Flower purchased the Kaikoura Sun, including its plant and machinery, from Alfred and Cyril Renner. He closed it down and the last issue of the Sun was printed in January 1911. After Flower sold the newspaper, Albert Burton Clark became the editor, manager and proprietor of the Star for three decades. During that time he incorporated the Cheviot News into the Star. The Star was a larger format, four-page newspaper when Clark sold it to Frank Bernard Sabiston after the Second World War. Sabiston sold the Star in 1960 after which it went through a number of ownership changes until it was purchased in 1988 by the Marlborough Express Company. The Star was sold again to Fairfax in 2003 and in 2016 the company closed the Kaikoura Star office. With a reporter based in Kaikōura, Fairfax continued to publish the Star until it sold the newspaper to the Greymouth Evening Star Company Ltd in 2018. In 2021 the Kaikoura Star was still published weekly by the Greymouth Star. | |
| Kaipara and Waitemata Echo (edit) | Kaipara Advertiser and Waitemata Chronicle | KWE | 1905 | 1927 | 1911 - 1921 | Auckland | In 1905, Charles de La Roche started the weekly Kaipara Advertiser and Waitemata Chronicle in Helensville. A 41-year-old entrepreneur, de La Roche was born and grew up in New South Wales. At 21 he was an officer in the Australian Imperial Forces and served in the Sudan War in 1885. Several years later he resigned his commission and moved to New Zealand. Already an experienced journalist, he contributed to a number of South Auckland newspapers while establishing a real estate business at Pukekohe. He launched his first newspaper, the Tauranga Herald, in 1899, but the bi-weekly survived for only a few months. His next venture, the Rodney and Otamatea Times, based in Warkworth, was to prove much more successful. Late in 1903 he sold the newspaper, moved his real estate business to Helensville and established his third newspaper. Helensville had been settled in 1863 by Scottish timber millers and kauri milling underwrote the town’s early development, with dairy farming of increasing importance by the beginning of the 20th century. The Kaipara Advertiser and Waitemata Chronicle had several more owners before Francis Mackenzie absorbed the paper into his Kaipara and Waitemata Echo in 1914. The Echo began publishing in 1907 and the new weekly was soon outperforming its competitor. Mackenzie, a colourful newspaperman who started several Northland newspapers, had worked for the Government Printer in Sydney and was an overseer at Auckland’s Southern Cross before founding his most successful publication, the Northern Luminary, in Kawakawa in 1879. He sold this paper in 1913. Known for the robustness of his journalism he was taken to court for libel and was once attacked in the street by someone claiming he had been defamed. Son Frank took over the Echo when his father died in 1917 and ran it until he retired. C J Claridge, junior, owned the paper until 1927 and then sold to Hilton Venables. The Echo was subsequently incorporated into the Rodney and Otamatea Courier. | |
| Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser (edit) | KSRA | 1901 | Apr-1936 | 1905 - 1933 | Waikato | The Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser was established in 1901 by William Murray Thompson and Thomas Elliott Wilson. Thompson was an experienced journalist and Wilson was a newspaper proprietor who at various times ran the Bruce Herald, the Waimate Times, the Egmont Settler and the Mangaweka Settler. The newspaper was based at Kāwhia, a small settlement south of Raglan. The area is important to Māori because it was the final landing place of the Tainui waka. Kāwhia was closed to European settlers from the 1860s until the 1880s as part of King Tāwhiao’s Te Rohe Pōtae. In 1882 the government led the establishment of a new town at Kāwhia. Although King Tāwhiao was not consulted, he eventually agreed to allow Europeans to settle in the area. The Settler was the first newspaper to be published in the King Country after the end of Te Rohe Pōtae. By the time the newspaper was established in 1901, Kāwhia was large enough that steamships made frequent stops on route to Taranaki or Auckland. Kāwhia’s harbour location and events such as the annual regatta made it an attractive destination for settlers and visitors. Thompson and Wilson purchased the printing press from the recently closed Hawera Morning Post. It arrived by ship in March 1901 and by May the Kawhia Settler was published weekly. In 1904 Thompson died suddenly while at work. Wilson was now the proprietor of the Taihape Post, so the Settler was purchased by a staff member, Herbert Harrison Pettit. As well as editing the newspaper, an article in the Observer said Pettit also ‘set it up in type, machined it, canvassed for the advertisements therein, and, in fact, ran the whole affair solus’ (Observer, 10 July 1909:4). Pettit was active in Kāwhia society - he was a member of the Town Board, ran a land agency, acted as secretary for a number of local societies and organised social events. After five years as editor of the Kawhia Settler, Pettit sold the newspaper and left for Australia. The new owner was Edward Henry Schnackenberg, whose father had been a missionary at Kāwhia in the mid-19th century. Not long after starting at the Settler, Schnackenberg introduced a column in te reo Māori, Nga Takiwa Maori. In 1934 Schnackenberg employed Winton Keay, of the Te Aroha News, to manage the Kawhia Settler. The last issue of the newspaper was published in April 1936. Keay went on to become editor of the short-lived Southern Cross before taking up a position at the Dominion in the early 1950s. Schnackenberg also wrote about the history of Kāwhia, including the small book, The pohutukawas of Kawhia: tales, traditions & legends relating to Kāwhia's famous Christmas trees, published in 1935. | ||
| King Country Chronicle (edit) | KCC | 1906 | 1980 | 1906 - 1939 | Waikato | Because European occupation and development of the King Country came much later than most other parts of New Zealand, newspapers also came relatively late to the area. The King Country was the heart of the Maori King movement, in parts still strongly antagonistic to European settlement, so it was not until the main truck railway line pushed through the area that towns developed. The railway from Auckland reached Te Kuiti, a Maori village, in 1887. European settlement dates from that year, when a railway construction camp was established, including an iron foundry to make girders for the Waiteti Viaduct. The main trunk line slowly extended south, reaching Taumarunui in 1901. It has been claimed that, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were 134 Europeans in Te Kuiti but the completion of the rail link brought in more settlers, the beginning of pastoral farming and cutting down of dense forests. The weekly King Country Chronicle was launched in Te Kuiti in 1906 by Arthur Hayward and Norman Matthews. The Poverty Bay Herald announced in its 2 November issue that the new paper ‘is excellently got up and has a substantial look’. Hayward left shortly afterwards, and edited the New Zealand Farmer in Auckland until his death in 1914. Matthews continued to run the paper for a number of years. In the early years of settlements, newspapers saw ‘boosterism’ - the boosting and often exaggerated promotion of their communities as a key role. When Te Kuiti became a borough in 1910, the King Country Chronicle published this doggerel: ‘Ho, Te Kuiti has a Mayor Say the word and hold your breath From the Waipa right to Taupo She’s the greatest and the best From the great majestic river That all nations flock to see Westward to the rolling hills Te Kuiti is the town to be.’ By 1911, the European population of the King Country was just over 15,000. Te Kuiti and Taumarunui were the largest towns, each with about 1,000 Europeans. In May 1918, the New Zealand Herald announced that the Waikato Times Publishing Company and Mr W Thomas, proprietor of the Taumarunui Press, had joined interests and taken over the King Country Chronicle. ‘The business of the three papers will be run in the name of the Waikato and King Country Press’. The agreement was either very short-lived or never finalised because the next year Matthews sold the King Country Chronicle to John Hamill. His ownership was not without its difficulties. In December 1921 Hamill was the defendant in a Hamilton Supreme Court case, sued for £4,000 by the clerk of the Waitomo County Council, who alleged libel. It was decided the statements published in the King Country Chronicle were defamatory and £50 damages were awarded. The next year the paper was sold again, this time to Samuel Craig, member of an Invercargill printing and publishing family that part-owned the Southland News. The King Country Chronicle was subsequently a bi-weekly run in conjunction with the Otorohanga Times (1912), which was begun by ‘rag-planter’ J H Claridge and later purchased by the Craigs. In 1980 the King Country Chronicle and Otorohanga Times were merged. The Waitomo News, as the resulting newspaper was named, was sold to the Spring family in 2002. The free tabloid, delivered on Tuesdays and Thursdays, is part of the Spring’s privately-owned group which includes the Whakatane Beacon, Bay Weekender and Opotiki News. | ||
| Kumara Times (edit) | KUMAT | 1876 | 1917 | 1877 - 1896 | West Coast | ‘Not the least interesting paper on the West Coast was the Kumara Times and Pounamu and Goldsborough Advertiser, which was founded in 1876 by the proprietors of the Grey River Argus’. (Guy H Scholefield, Newspapers in New Zealand, 1958). Gold had been discovered on the West Coast in the 1860s, with Hokitika as the goldfields capital and smaller towns being established up and down the coast. Stafford and Goldsborough, on the Waimea goldfield a few miles north of Hokitika, had hotels, stores, a school, library and churches, and a tramway from town. Kumara, named by A D Dobson in 1863 after the flower of the bush lawyer, kohimara, was a later goldfield, supposedly 'rushed' after an illicit whisky still was being set up on the banks of the Teramakau River and gold was discovered...all thoughts of moonshine disappeared very quickly. Richard John Seddon, (1845-1906) had settled on the Waimea, having joined his uncle Nathan Seddon there in late 1866. Born in Lancashire, Seddon spent a few years in Australia before moving over to the West Coast, establishing himself as a storekeeper, publican, miner's advocate, and starting a family. When he heard of the Kumara rush he moved hotel licence, wife and children over the hill and he became the first Mayor of the borough of Kumara. In 1879 he became a member of Parliament, and he represented the West Coast for the remainder of his life, of which 13 years were as Premier. He left Kumara in 1895, spending the last 10 years of his life in Wellington. An obituary in the Evening Post on 26th August 1901 reported the death of the Hon James Kerr, ‘...a pioneer of the West Coast, founder of the Kumara Times, part proprietor of the Grey River Argus, and a prominent figure in local politics...chair of the Westland Education Board and the Greymouth Harbour Board, and a member of the Borough Council’. Kerr was born in Scotland in 1834, went to Australia in 1858, and joined Julius Vogel on the Otago Daily Times in 1861. He established the Grey River Argus in 1865, favoured liberalism in its truest form, and was an ardent and keen supporter of Richard Seddon and the Liberal Party. Charles Janion (1830-1902) owned the Kumara Times from 1883-1896, and sold it to Messrs Benyon and Richards, who ran the newspaper until 31 July 1917, when it closed. Janion, incidentally, developed Seddon's idea of a New Zealand Year Book, and edited the 1893 edition. There are 11,732 pages of the Kumara Times in 20 cloth-covered cardboard folios, each with its own shelf in the Hokitika Museum's periodical room. They represent 50% of the first 20 years of the paper's publication, of some years there are only 6 months of copy, and other years are entirely missing. There are no traces of the last 20 years of copies, many were lost in a Kumara fire. | ||
| Lake County Mail (edit) | LCM | 29-May-1947 | 1948 | 1947 - 1948 | Otago | The Lake County Mail appears to be the short-lived successor to Queenstown’s Lake Wakatip Mail and the Lake County Press which it had absorbed previously. During its early years, the Lake Wakatip Mail was, as Queenstown prospered, a bi-weekly that regularly ran to eight pages. In February 1875, with ‘a reduced population, stagnation in trade, and lack of enterprise’, it became a weekly. In 1926, the Mail absorbed Arrowtown’s struggling Lake County Press. It survived another 21 years before closing in February 1947. Shortly afterwards, the Lake County Mail - using part of each paper’s name - appeared for less than a year. There is no published information about the publication, thought to be a weekly. It has been recorded that, in February 1948, three Central Otago newspapers merged. Stevens Bros, long-time owners of the Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette and more recent publishers of the Dunstan Times, combined these papers with the Lake County Mail. The resulting Central Otago News was published twice weekly (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and based in Alexandra. Explaining the decision, an editorial in the Alexandra Herald said: ‘While appreciating the fact that local people cherish a genuine fondness for their ‘local rag’, we feel that this step towards combining the interests of Central Otago is one that is wise and necessary .... We feel that Central is no longer a series of isolated, individual towns and districts with widely divergent interests, but is rapidly developing into a coherent whole, one community, Central Otago.’ As of 2015, the Lakes District and Central Otago News was a tabloid weekly, owned by Allied Press, publishers of the Otago Daily Times. | ||
| Lake County Press (edit) | Arrow Observer and Lakes District Chronicle | LCP | 5-Jan-1872 | 1928 | 1872 - 1928 | Otago | The predecessor of the Lake County Press, the Arrow Observer and Lakes District Chronicle, published its first issue on 23 May 1871 in the gold-mining settlement of Arrowtown. William Warren of Queenstown’s Lake Wakatip Mail and Stephen Noble Brown, who later ran the Cromwell Argus, were involved in the establishment of the Observer. At around the same as the Arrow Observer began, a rival in the form of the Arrow Advocate and Wakatip Reporter also appeared. Little is known about this newspaper and it is thought that no issues have survived. The owners of the Cromwell Argus were involved in establishing the Advocate and the Otago Daily Times commented that its first issue ‘contains a large amount of reading matter, well selected and arranged’. Competition between the Observer and the Advocate appears to have been strong, with the Otago Witness commenting that they ‘devote a large portion of their space to abusing each other.’ The Observer won the paper war, with the Advocate’s demise being reported in September 1871. The Arrow Observer continued until 1882; its struggles over the years were acknowledged by its last owner Ebenezer Sandford who commented in the final issue on ‘the poor figure cut by the paper’. The Observer was replaced by the Lake County Press, which was published by Sandford and J T Marryat Hornsby. In 1883 rivalry with the Lake Wakatip Mail escalated into legal proceedings after the Mail published a scathing article about a public address by Hornsby. Hornsby was awarded damages for libel after the jury held that the Mail had implied Hornsby was a convict by saying he came from Tasmania. Philip de la Perrelle, who was only in his early twenties, bought the Lake County Press in 1895 and ran the newspaper until 1914. De la Perrelle was later elected to Parliament and served as Minister of Internal Affairs from 1928-1931 in the Ward and Forbes cabinets. The Lake County Press ran until 1928 when it was absorbed by the Lake Wakatip Mail. | |
| Lake Wakatip Mail (edit) | LWM | 2-May-1863 | 6-Feb-1947 | 1863 - 1947 | Otago | Following the discovery of gold on the banks of the Shotover River in November 1862, the town of Queenstown appeared almost overnight and the first issue of the Lake Wakatip Mail followed soon after on 2 May 1863. The Otago Daily Times of 18 May 1863 commented about the Mail that ‘it seems difficult to realise ... that such a paper should be published in Queenstown, a place which six months ago was the head station of a runholder, and nothing more’. James Bradshaw, who later achieved prominence as a Member of Parliament and as an important early advocate of labour law reform, worked as an editor of the Mail. However, the key figure in the early life of the paper was William Warren, who became part owner of the paper in 1864 and sole owner in 1867. When gold was discovered on the West Coast, many miners moved on, and the Mail struggled to survive in the severe slump that followed. In April 1867 the Mail announced it would cease publication but was revived after missing only one issue. In its early years, flood and fire also added to the Mail’s difficulties. In 1878 the lower part of Queenstown was flooded and the Mail’s stock damaged; worse was to follow in 1879 when two of Warren’s children lit some paper and the Mail’s office was completely destroyed by fire, along with a supply of new type and materials that had only been received from Melbourne the previous day. In 1883 Warren found himself in legal strife after the Mail published a scathing article about a public address by J T Marryat Hornsby of the neighbouring Arrowtown newspaper, the Lake County Press. Hornsby sued for damages for libel and succeeded when the jury held that the Mail had implied that Hornsby was a convict by saying he came from Tasmania. After William Warren died the Warren family continued to be involved with the Mail for many years. During the First World War, Margaret (Daisy) Warren took over management of the paper when her brother enlisted for service, despite prejudice and doubt over her suitability for the role. Daisy proved to be highly successful in her new position and after the war continued to have a prominent role in the running of the Mail. In 1928 the Lake Wakatip Mail absorbed the Lake County Press and continued to be published until 6 February 1947. | ||
| Levin Daily Chronicle (edit) | Levin Chronicle | LDC | 1917 | Still being published | 1917 - 1946 | Manawatu - Wanganui | The paper had a complicated genesis. In Shannon in 1893, William C Nation, well-known in spiritualist circles, began the tri-weekly Manawatu Farmer and Horowhenua County Chronicle, with his son Charles. Nation had previously worked for the Nelson Colonist and the New Zealand Times and had owned the Wairarapa Standard. In 1896 the well-known newspaper ‘planter’ Joseph Ivess arrived in nearby Levin and began the Manawatu Express and Horowhenua County Advertiser, selling it almost immediately to William J Reid and John McKellop. The Nations responded by moving their plant to Levin, buying in turn the Manawatu Express from Reid and McKellop and absorbing it into the Manawatu Farmer, which continued as a tri-weekly as the town grew. In 1908 David S Papworth began the short-lived bi-weekly, the Levin Times. This did not survive and Papworth was then briefly manager, editor and reporter of the Manawatu Farmer. In October the same year the Evening Post reported the court case in which Papworth claimed £500 damages (about $34,000 today) from the Horowhenua Publishing Company for wrongful dismissal. The company claimed ‘disloyalty, negligence, and incompetency’; the judge, in awarding £225 to Papworth, suggested the jury might have reasonably taken the view that ‘the company was anxious to sell the property and to get rid of the defendant for the purpose of facilitating the sale’. Ironically, it was Papworth, possibly using some of the money awarded him, who bought the Manawatu Farmer. In 1909, he renamed it the Horowhenua Daily Chronicle. Herbert G Kerslake and Robert H Billens were the next owners, buying the paper in 1917. With wartime paper shortages, it was published tri-weekly as the Levin Chronicle until daily publication was resumed in 1923. Before Levin was connected to electricity in 1924 the paper’s printing presses and linotypes were water-powered. The waste waster was piped out to the street gutter. In 1944, L A Humphrey, who began his newspaper career as a Chronicle paper boy in 1920, became a director of what was now Kerslake, Billens and Humphrey. Over the years the Daily Chronicle consolidated its position in Levin and Horowhenua, as the town’s population grew strongly from the 1940s to the 1960s. Kerslake, Billens and Humphrey became, in 1960, part of the United Publishing and Printing Company (UPP), headed by the Rotorua Post’s Ray Smith. Wilson & Horton acquired all the shares in UPP in 1985. A decade later Wilson & Horton, in response to a share raid by Brierley Investments, welcomed the Irish media company Independent Newspapers Plc (INP) as a major shareholder. INP quickly gained control and by April 1998 wholly owned Wilson & Horton. In 2001, INP sold its shareholding to APN News and Media, an Australian media company it partly owned. In early 2007 the Daily Chronicle switched from broadsheet to tabloid format and, interestingly, given subsequent developments, won the 2007 PANPA (Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association) Newspaper of the Year Award for newspapers of under 15,000 circulation. The next year APN announced that the Chronicle was ending six days a week publication and would be distributed free to every household in Levin and surrounding districts, on Wednesday and Saturdays. | |
| Little Un (edit) | LITLUN | Dec-1884 | Apr-1885 | 1884 - 1885 | Bay of Plenty | Little Un appeared in Tauranga as an evening daily between December 1884 and April 1885. Its name clearly referred to its unusual size. Little Un was published in a quarto format and cost ½d a copy. Appropriately, the paper’s Latin motto was ‘Multum in parvo’- loosely translated in this instance to suggest, rather optimistically, a considerable amount of information condensed into few words. The four-page paper was conventional in other ways. It generally carried about 60 percent advertising, a significant amount of which was for a diverse range of items available from owner T W Rhodes’ stationery, books, toys and fancy goods shop. The paper carried short local news items, often about ship arrivals and cargoes, and truncated cablegrams of international news. There were also brief telegraphic items from other New Zealand cities and towns. During its short life the Little Un was a trenchant critic of the local borough council, as this quote reprinted in the Thames Star in 1885 shows: ‘Is this lovely city asleep? What are those sleeping beauties, the members of our Borough Council doing? Talking railway we presume, and allowing such trivial matters as mail service, harbour improvements, wharves, etc to slide’ (Thames Star, 22 January 1885: 2) As the Auckland Star put it on 11 April 1885, ‘The Little Un of Tauranga, after living 101 days, has developed into a bigger one’ (Auckland Star, 11 April 1885: 2). This was the tri-weekly Tauranga Evening News which remained in Rhodes family ownership. The conventionally-sized newspaper appeared almost immediately in the same month the Little Un closed. In mid-1887, its then-owner Richard Rhodes moved to Coromandel and established the twice-weekly Coromandel News and Peninsula Gazette that August. In time, this became the Coromandel Country News and survived until late 1930. | ||
| Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette (edit) | LTCBG | 1881 | 1898 | 1885 - 1886 | West Coast | Lyell, in the South Island’s Buller district, was a major producer of gold and the centre of considerable quartz mining activity in the surrounding hills until the mid 1890s. Gold was first discovered in the area by Maori prospectors in the early 1860s. As word spread of their finds, miners arrived from other fields and overseas. The only access was by canoe on the Buller River with its many rapids and it was some years before a road was built along the banks of the Buller Gorge. Cliff Street, Lyell’s only street, where its banks, hotels and newspaper were located, was constructed in the 1870s. By then, the wives and families of miners had arrived, tents along Lyell Creek were replaced by houses around Cliff Street and a more settled community flourished until it had a population of more than 2,000 in the late 1880s. The first newspaper, the Lyell Argus and Matakitaki Advertiser, launched in 1873, was published weekly, and for a time twice weekly. Its four pages carried international and local news, particularly mining developments and advertisements for the growing number of retailers along Cliff Street. It was run by James Graham Niven and later by Thomas John Metcalfe. It closed in 1882, very likely because of the arrival of a competitor. The Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette was begun in 1881 by Edward Percy Smyrk. He had served an apprenticeship under John Tyrrell, then owner of the Westport Times, before working on the Inangahua Times in Reefton. After Smyrk sold the Lyell Times to Walter Atkin in 1888 he worked on the Westport Times again. Later, as proprietor of the short-lived Gisborne newspaper the New Zealand Standard, he filed for bankruptcy in 1892, with liabilities of £349, more than three times his available assets. Interestingly, among his debtors were two well-known newspapermen, Henry Brett and William G Geddis. He subsequently worked on Hawke’s Bay newspapers. Walter Atkin, originally from Ireland, had managed the Inangahua Times before taking over the Lyell Times. In 1896, the paper’s Cliff Street office was victim of a major fire that also destroyed the National Bank, three hotels and a number of other buildings. Few of the businesses were insured, but Atkin was covered for £200. With the township badly affected by the fire, Atkin closed the Lyell Times a couple of years later and purchased the Westport News, a morning daily. Unlike many early newspaper proprietors he left a sizeable estate – £2,326 – on his death in 1911. (About $375,000 today.) Lyell recovered to some degree from the 1896 fire, but the closure of the area’s largest mine a decade later led to a major exodus of residents. A number of surviving buildings were destroyed by another fire in 1926 and most of those still living there left after the 1929 Murchison earthquake. Today the cemetery and a picnic ground with display boards outlining the area’s history are all that remain. | ||
| Lyttelton Times (edit) | LT | 11-Jan-1851 | 29-Jun-1935 | 1851 - 1920 | Canterbury | Even before the arrival of the first colonists in Canterbury, they had highlighted the need for a newspaper: a “Prospectus of Newspaper to be established in the Canterbury Settlement” proposed the publication of a weekly newspaper to be called the Lyttelton Times. The plant arrived in Lyttelton on 16 December 1850 on the Charlotte Jane, one of the first four ships. The first issue was published on the 11 January 1851, under the editorship of James Edward Fitzgerald. The Lyttelton Times began to appear twice a week in 1854, then in 1863 this increased to three times a week. At this time, publication also moved to Christchurch, already home to The Press newspaper, founded in 1861. The publishers of the Lyttelton Times started the weekly Canterbury Times in 1865, and then The Star, an evening edition of the Lyttelton Times, appeared on 14 May 1868. In 1929 the Lyttelton Times became the Christchurch Times, the final issue of which appeared on 29 June 1935. | ||
| Manawatu Herald (edit) | MH | 1878 | 1997 | 1878 - 1939 | Manawatu - Wanganui | Newspaper publishing began in the Foxton area in the 1870s when the Manawatu was opened up for European settlement. In this period Foxton’s port was developed and the town was linked by coach and rail to the main centres in the lower North Island. The Manawatu Herald was founded by brothers George Warren Russell and John Ruffell Russell in 1878. It was the first paper published in Foxton, following unsuccessful attempts in 1873 to publish a newspaper called the Manawatu Guardian. George Russell had worked on newspapers in Invercargill and Wellington and went on to work on others, in particular the Spectator in Christchurch. He was also a prominent Member of the House of Representatives and cabinet minister during the First World War. George Russell did not stay with the Herald for long. By 1882 he had moved on to the Manawatu Times in Palmerston North leaving his brother with the Foxton paper. The Herald was sold to Ernest Thynne in 1889. During Thynne’s tenure the Herald had a rival paper to contend with, the Foxton Telegraph, which ran for four years from 1896. The local council appear to have encouraged the Telegraph by dividing council advertising between it and the Herald. This was probably because Thynne and the Herald represented the rural lobby in Foxton. In 1906 Thynne sold the paper to John Knowles Hornblow. Hornblow came from a family of newspapermen; his father wrote for the New Zealand Times, and Hornblow and his brothers worked on various Wairarapa newspapers. Hornblow owned the Wairarapa Standard in Greytown before taking over the Herald. When Hornblow took over the Herald, Foxton was a town with prospects. There were plans to extend the port and it was hoped that the main trunk line would go through Foxton. Unfortunately within a year or two these prospects were gone. The port development did not go ahead and the railway that was completed in 1908 bypassed Foxton. Despite this Hornblow and his son Robert managed to keep the Herald running, with Robert taking over as proprietor after his father died in 1937. The paper changed hands several more times before ceasing publication in 1997. The Herald was initially published twice a week then moved to thrice weekly in 1890, back to bi-weekly in 1944 and then weekly from 1956. In 1955 the title was changed to the Foxton Herald and in 1961 it reverted to the Manawatu Herald. | ||
| Manawatu Standard (edit) | Manawatu Daily Standard; Manawatu Evening Standard | MS | 29-Nov-1880 | Still being published | 1881 - 1945 | Manawatu - Wanganui | Keen to have his own newspaper, Alexander McMinn, editor of the Rangitkei Advocate, established the Manawatu Standard in 1880 as a four page morning daily, the first daily in Palmerston North. The first issue, dated 29 November 1880, contained an editorial written by John Ballance. As circulation increased (estimated at 1,500 in 1881), technology improved, with replacement of the hand-press by a steam-driven printing press, and town and country editions were introduced. Relations with the rival Manawatu Times were disputatious. Brothers Frederick and David Pirani took it over in 1891 and later changed it to an evening publication. Martha Pirani, wife of Frederick, wrote editorials for the paper. Liberal Independent in politics, it circulated in the Manawatu District, Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki and was recognised for its stock sale advertisements. Frederick won the seat of Palmerston in the election of 1893 and remained in office until his retirement due to poor health in 1902. The Manawatu Standard was sold to John Coombe and Norman Henry Nash in 1903. The Standard celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1930, with a special issue. Despite further changes in ownership, it continued to be published into the 21st century. | |
| Manawatu Times (edit) | Manawatu Daily Times; Times | MT | 23-Oct-1875 | 1963 | 1877 - 1945 | Manawatu - Wanganui | The first issue of the Manawatu Times was published on 23 October 1875, the first newspaper in Palmerston North. Its founders, partners Joseph Poulter Leary and John Law Kirkbride, had established the Rangitikei Advocate 5 months earlier. It appeared in the evenings twice a week, though it did later become a morning publication, largely to facilitate its distribution in country areas. A weekly edition, the Manawatu Weekly Times, was published for 2 years in 1889-1891. The paper was bought by John Boulger Dungan, who maintained strained relations with the rival Manawatu Standard, to the extent that Standard editor Alexander McMinn brought a libel case against him. He ran it until his death, at which point George Warren Russell took it over from 1882-1884. Purchased by Mr. W.H. Smith in 1884, he ran it until 1896. The Manawatu Daily Times Company was launched in 1915. Chairman Alfred Seifert had an association of 30 years with the Times until his death in 1945. Publication continued until 1963. | |
| Marlborough Daily Times (edit) | Marlborough Times | MDTIM | 28-Mar-1879 | 1905 | 1880 - 1888 | Marlborough | This is the third of the newspapers to be known as the Marlborough Times. The first began in Picton in 1864, as a result of the recent gold discoveries in the Wakamarina River. It lasted just over 7 months. The second Marlborough Times was established in Blenheim in 1874 by the Marlborough Times Company. The company purchased the printing plant of the Marlborough News and incorporated the News into the new Times. It lasted just over two years, closing in August 1876. On Friday 28 March 1879 the third newspaper to be named the Marlborough Times appeared. Another bi-weekly, the proprietor was John Tait (c.1850-1882), who had been involved in the 1874-1876 newspaper. The Times left its political leanings in no doubt, describing the Grey government as ‘Born in senile puerility, [this government] has made no attempt at a policy which has not resulted in failure, and looking even at their administration alone, the verdict of the people must be—the most impotent Government ever known in this country.’ The Times became a daily from January 1882 and consequently became known as the Marlborough Daily Times. Shortly after this, Tait died, and the Times was put up for sale. It went through a number of owners between 1882 and 1894 and had a difficult time in various ways. The editor Richard Winter died in August 1887 from injuries caused by a large fire; the newspaper plant, stock and debts were put up for a mortgagee sale in November 1889; publication of the paper was then suspended in December 1889, due to financial problems; and the Mahakipawa Miners Union boycotted the paper in August 1890. However, it survived all of this, as well as a fire that totally destroyed the premises in 1891, until 1895, when it was purchased by Smith James Furness (1852-1921). Furness was the owner of the Times’ long-time rival, the Marlborough Express. Rather than closing the Times, Furness made it a morning paper, hoping to protect himself from other competitors starting up in the region. This worked until the Marlborough Herald started up in September 1905. At that stage Furness closed the Times in order to focus on the Express. The Express went on to outlive its rivals, with the Herald folding in 1911 and the Marlborough Press being absorbed into the Express in 1948. | |
| Marlborough Express (edit) | Marlborough Express and Weekly Commercial Reporter | MEX | 1868 | Still being published | 1868 - 1952 | Marlborough | The Marlborough Express is the daily newspaper of Blenheim and has been published there since 1866. In 1866 the prospects for a new newspaper in Marlborough were not good. The population of the province was small and Marlborough already had two newspapers. A third, the Marlborough Times, had folded the year before after a few months in operation. The Express was founded by Samuel Johnson. Johnson already had some experience as a journalist in England and New Zealand. He had arrived in 1862 with the Albertians, a band of idealistic settlers who settled in North Auckland. Johnson edited the Albertian newspaper the Albertland Gazette for a short time until he became disillusioned with the settlement. He then worked on newspapers in other parts of the country before settling on Blenheim. Politics in Marlborough was dominated by rivalry between Blenheim and Picton, and this was reflected in the Marlborough newspapers. Originally the Press was published in Blenheim but had moved to Picton. The publishers tried to placate Blenheim residents by saying that the paper was actually published in both places, but eventually they had to publish a separate Blenheim paper, the Wairau Record. When launching the Express Johnson promised to give Marlborough a paper that would serve the whole province. Perhaps it was this attempt to rise above the squabbling between Blenheim and Picton that helped the Express establish itself and ultimately prevail over its rivals. In 1879 Johnson sold the Express to Smith Furness and James Boudy. Furness had worked on newspapers in Wellington, Nelson, and Ashburton. The Furness family controlled the Express until 1998 when it was sold to Independent Newspapers Limited (INL). The Express became a daily in 1880 and took over its rivals the Marlborough Times in 1895 and the Marlborough Press in 1948. | |
| Marlborough Press (edit) | MPress | 1860 | 1948 | 1860 - 1886 | Marlborough | When the Marlborough region split from Nelson to become a separate province, two experienced newspaper printers saw the opportunity to set up their own newspaper. Timothy William Millington, formerly a compositor at the Melbourne Herald, started work at the Nelson Examiner in 1859. There he met George Coward, reported to be one of the first compositors in New Zealand. Coward and Millington had opened offices in the small Marlborough settlement of Beaverton, population of around 500, and the first issue of the Press was printed on 6 January 1860, only two months after the foundation of the new province. The Press was a weekly, four-page newspaper that provided Marlborough residents with local news. There was no shortage of news. Beaverton was renamed Blenheim not long after the newspaper started and there was more dramatic change to come. In 1861 the province’s other settlement, Picton, became the capital of the province and home to the provincial government. To stay close to the daily business of regional politics, the Marlborough Press office relocated to Picton. Aware of the rivalry between the two towns, Coward and Millington printed one part of the newspaper at Blenheim and the other at Picton. But after several years the proprietors decided to publish two separate newspapers; Millington continued to publish the Press, while Coward returned to Blenheim to start the Wairau Record. Coward and Millington dissolved their business partnership in 1865 and later that year the Press was sold to a short-lived company, the Marlborough Press and General Printing Ltd. Millington was replaced as printer by Alfred Thomas Card, who became the proprietor when he purchased the newspaper from the company shareholders in 1866. In 1865 Millington took over the management of the Wairau Record, and renamed it the Marlborough News. Meanwhile Card went on to run the Press for 40 years, apart from a brief time in 1881 when it was owned by Richard Hornby. Competition included Millington’s Marlborough News, which closed in 1874, the Marlborough Express and the Marlborough Times. When Card retired in 1904, George William Nicol and Hans Christian Madsen (both from Wairarapa) bought the newspaper. On 6 August 1921, a fire broke out in the Press buildings and they were largely destroyed. Fortunately, the machinery, including a linotype, was saved and bi-weekly publication of the paper resumed quickly. Nicol and Madsen continued running the paper until Madsen’s death in 1937 and Nicol’s in 1943. The paper ceased later that year. Sydney Davey revived it in 1944, but after four years he advertised it for sale. The plant was bought by the Marlborough Express who absorbed it into their operations. Unfortunately, most historical copies of the Press were lost in the 1921 fire. Many more were destroyed in the late 1980s, despite the efforts of Mike Taylor, Te Ātiawa historian and the former President of Picton Historical Society. When Mike heard that bundles of the Press had been sent to the local dump after being found during a demolition, he broke through the dump’s gate with a crowbar. Sadly he was only able to rescue a few copies; the rest had been bulldozed into a slurry. | ||
| The Chronicle (edit) | CHRONL | 2008 | 1946 - 1949 | Manawatu - Wanganui | The paper had a complicated genesis. In Shannon in 1893, William C Nation, well-known in spiritualist circles, began the tri-weekly Manawatu Farmer and Horowhenua County Chronicle, with his son Charles. Nation had previously worked for the Nelson Colonist and the New Zealand Times and had owned the Wairarapa Standard. In 1896 the well-known newspaper ‘planter’ Joseph Ivess arrived in nearby Levin and began the Manawatu Express and Horowhenua County Advertiser, selling it almost immediately to William J Reid and John McKellop. The Nations responded by moving their plant to Levin, buying in turn the Manawatu Express from Reid and McKellop and absorbing it into the Manawatu Farmer, which continued as a tri-weekly as the town grew. In 1908 David S Papworth began the short-lived bi-weekly, the Levin Times. This did not survive and Papworth was then briefly manager, editor and reporter of the Manawatu Farmer. In October the same year the Evening Post reported the court case in which Papworth claimed £500 damages (about $34,000 today) from the Horowhenua Publishing Company for wrongful dismissal. The company claimed ‘disloyalty, negligence, and incompetency’; the judge, in awarding £225 to Papworth, suggested the jury might have reasonably taken the view that ‘the company was anxious to sell the property and to get rid of the defendant for the purpose of facilitating the sale’. Ironically, it was Papworth, possibly using some of the money awarded him, who bought the Manawatu Farmer. In 1909, he renamed it the Horowhenua Daily Chronicle. Herbert G Kerslake and Robert H Billens were the next owners, buying the paper in 1917. With wartime paper shortages, it was published tri-weekly as the Levin Chronicle until daily publication was resumed in 1923. Before Levin was connected to electricity in 1924 the paper’s printing presses and linotypes were water-powered. The waste waster was piped out to the street gutter. In 1944, L A Humphrey, who began his newspaper career as a Chronicle paper boy in 1920, became a director of what was now Kerslake, Billens and Humphrey. Over the years the Chronicle consolidated its position in Levin and Horowhenua, as the town’s population grew strongly from the 1940s to the 1960s. Kerslake, Billens and Humphrey became, in 1960, part of the United Publishing and Printing Company (UPP), headed by the Rotorua Post’s Ray Smith. Wilson & Horton acquired all the shares in UPP in 1985. A decade later Wilson & Horton, in response to a share raid by Brierley Investments, welcomed the Irish media company Independent Newspapers Plc (INP) as a major shareholder. INP quickly gained control and by April 1998 wholly owned Wilson & Horton. In 2001, INP sold its shareholding to APN News and Media, an Australian media company it partly owned. In early 2007 the Chronicle switched from broadsheet to tabloid format and, interestingly, given subsequent developments, won the 2007 PANPA (Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association) Newspaper of the Year Award for newspapers of under 15,000 circulation. The next year APN announced that the Chronicle was ending six days a week publication and would be distributed free to every household in Levin and surrounding districts, on Wednesday and Saturdays. | |||
| The Colonist (edit) | TC | 1857 | 1-May-1920 | 1857 - 1920 | Nelson - Tasman | The Colonist was founded in 1857 by a group of Nelson residents as a means to oppose the dominance of the large landowners of the district. At the time its only opposition was the Nelson Examiner, which the Colonist was largely established to challenge and to provide an alternative voice. A committee of six including William Wilkie was the driving force behind the new venture, and it invited William Nation, a Sydney-based publisher with his own press, to move to Nelson to establish the newspaper. Nation and his family moved to Nelson the same year and the first issue of the Colonist was published from Wilkie’s store on 23 October 1857. The Colonist was initially published twice-weekly, and in 1882 it became a daily. In 1866 another competitor appeared, the daily Nelson Evening Mail. For a period Nelson had three newspapers; two bi-weeklies and a daily. The Examiner ceased publication in 1874, leaving the field to the Colonist and Evening Mail. The Evening Mail became Nelson’s sole newspaper when it bought out the Colonist in 1920. The final edition of the Colonist appeared on 1 May 1920. | ||
| The Dominion (edit) | DOM | 26-Sep-1907 | 2002 | 1907 - 1945 | Wellington | The Dominion was launched on the first Dominion Day, September 26, 1907, with the specific purpose of providing a strong conservative voice in the capital where the other morning paper, the New Zealand Times, was poorly run and had a Liberal Party heritage, and the much stronger Evening Post was more interested in business than party politics. When the morning daily was launched just a year after Richard John Seddon’s death, the Liberals had been in power for 16 years and would be for another five. However, under Sir Joseph Ward, the party was in decline while the Dominion’s directors and shareholders were an impressive list of leading conservative MPs and substantial Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa runholders. Of particular concern to them were the Liberal policies on labour laws, pensions and land tenure, including the break-up of large rural estates. Unsurprisingly, the newspaper was a persuasive promoter of William Massey’s Reform Party and its policies. The first editor – and he held that position, except for three years in the 1930s, until 1950 – was Charles Westwood Earle. He was also the newspaper company’s managing-director for much of the period and well-attuned to the singular requirements of his Wellington Publishing Company board. While landowner interests were pushed and ‘labour agitators’ attacked, the newspaper also supported good working conditions and backed free education. More predictably, the Dominion promoted free trade within the British Empire, sat on the fence over liquor issues, and advocated a ‘white NZ’ immigration policy. From the beginning, the newspaper’s ambitions stretched well beyond the urban confines of Wellington. There was a strong emphasis on farming news to attract readers in the Wairarapa, Manawatu and Hawke’s Bay, with correspondents in Masterton, Palmerston North and Hastings. The paper’s initial circulation of 2,600 had risen to 20,500 by 1914. By 1927, the Wellington Publishing Company was in a strong enough position to buy and close down the New Zealand Times. A year later it moved into the impressive, purpose-built six-storey building in Mercer Street that it occupied until 1970. Over the decades, the Dominion’s political stance slowly modified. Shocked by Labour’s 1935 election win, the paper congratulated the new prime minister Michael Joseph Savage but was soon vigorously attacking the government’s ‘socialist’ policies. The hostility of the Dominion and other newspapers led to the launching of the Labour Party’s own daily newspaper, the Southern Cross, in Wellington. It was the first morning opposition to the Dominion – in both political and circulation terms – since the closure of the New Zealand Times. In 1959, eight years after the Southern Cross had closed, Wellington Publishing Company directors reaffirmed their support for the monarchy and British traditions, freedom of speech and private enterprise, but conceded there might be occasions ‘where the need for state interference was clearly shown’. There was now no direct link to any political party. In the 1960s, the Dominion supported New Zealand’s involvement in the Vietnam War, but also joined with environmentalists in opposing the raising of Lake Manapouri. The paper introduced front page news in 1963 and pioneered the use of bylines by journalists. Between 1968-1972 it was published as a tabloid before reverting to a broadsheet format. In 1964, Lord Thomson’s attempt to buy the Wellington Publishing Company triggered a takeover war, with Australian publisher Rupert Murdoch the ultimate beneficiary. The 1965 Media Ownership Act limited ownership of New Zealand media companies to 20 percent, but Murdoch’s share gradually increased to 49 percent – giving his News Corporation effective control – after the legislation was repealed in 1974. In 1972, when the companies owning the Dominion and rival Evening Post merged, the resulting Independent Newspapers Ltd (INL) grew rapidly through a succession of takeovers to become one of two dominant media companies in New Zealand. In July 2002, INL’s two Wellington newspapers merged to become the morning Dominion-Post. The next year, Fairfax Media, the Australian media conglomerate, purchased, for $1 billion, most of the publishing interests of INL, including the Dominion-Post. The name of the company was changed to Stuff Ltd in 2018, and in 2020 Sinead Boucher bought the company from Fairfax’s Australian owners for $1. |