8 LOCAL NEWS Saturday, October 13, 2018 Wairarapa Times-Age www.age.co.nz Saturday, October 13, 2018 LOCAL NEWS 9 Weekend feature The spread of newspapers and news in Wairarapa’s early days When it came to the spread of newspapers in the early days of New Zealand colonisation, Wairarapa was at the forefront of publishing outside the main centres. In this excerpt from IAN F GRANT’s new history of New Zealand newspapers, Lasting Impressions, the enthusiasm for spreading the news is clear – though not all efforts were successful.

The rst township before he started the newspapers short-lived Wairarapa Apart from the Bay of Journal in 1868. When the Islands, with its scattering Mercury closed in August of early villages and 1872, not helped by two newspapers the fi rst equipment-destroying townships away from the fi res, Wakelin promptly fi rst organised coastal issued the bi-weekly Wairarapa Standard. The Wairarapa Standard building. Sta members lined up outside the Wairarapa Daily Times settlements were in the PHOTO/WAIRARAPA ARCHIVE o ce in Church Street, Masterton, circa 1905. PHOTO/FILE Wairarapa and Manawatu. Several months later The Wairarapa Age building with the sta lined up outside. The Times and the Age were eventually to merge to form the Greytown was the his son-in-law Joseph Times-Age. PHOTO/FILE Payton, a school teacher, country’s fi rst inland farming families busily Masterton’s population type up-to-date and for Politics, though, rarely various products of the projected Wellington to joined him, and the took a greater interest in did not have a newspaper after a feeble life of six Martinborough Star, in town, the fi rst settlers breaking in their had leapfrogged the other many years used a smooth took precedence over fellmongery and wool- Woodville Railway.” paper survived through the Wairarapa. of its own until well months”. arriving in late March properties throughout the towns in the valley to 1673 white paper superior commercial reality. scouring works”. Until 1897, when the 1904 and promptly sold it. a number of ownership In April 1893, the into the 20th century. 1854, two months before valley. souls. in quality to ordinary In Masterton’s case, During the 1890s, the rail reached Pahiatua and The New Century In northern Wairarapa, changes until 1942. Wairarapa Daily News Similarly, there was no Masterton’s fi rst residents Despite its trailing In part this was newsprint”. the Wairarapa Daily, Daily Times regularly Woodville, Eketahuna was After William Cargill sold As North of the published a letter Joseph Martinborough paper the Pahiatua Herald took up their land about population, when administrative sleight-of- A number of Wairarapa conservative in its outlook, a bustling terminus with the Wairarapa Star to Waingawa noted: carried up to 75 per cent Payton had written to the until 1904. became a daily in 1902 22 kilometres to the north. Masterton’s fi rst hand, Masterton moving and Manawatu’s early had serious, spirited advertising in its four page newspapers offl oaded to Arthur Major in 1902, “Allowing for diff erent Evening Post refuting In Pahiatua, to the while, in the same year, the Both townships newspaper, the from town board status to newspapers did furl their competition from 1881. continue their journey he promptly took the defi nitions of the term issues. a circulation claim that north of Masterton, there developed from plans, ambitiously titled bi- a borough, “but there was sails in short order, but the Not only was the north by coach. sensible business decision Eketahuna Express and ‘urban area’, 1874 fi gures According to the paper had made: “I claim were several attempts to hatched in Wellington, for weekly Wairarapa News Wairarapa Daily, known Wairarapa Star also In other smaller of moving publication North Wairarapa Courier show Greytown with no denying that one fi fth Cyclopedia of New that you do not circulate start newspapers, despite working class families to and Valley and East as the Daily Times from an afternoon daily, but Wairarapa communities to mornings with a new a population of 479, of the Wairarapa’s 8263 Zealand, the Star had a in the Wairarapa twice as the township’s small survived a serious fi re, buy land. it promoted the Liberal newspapers struggled name, the Wairarapa Age. Carterton with 396, Coast Advertiser, was residents now lived in the 1892, was not one of them. double royal printing press many papers as I do, and population. and was to have several “The Small Farms cause editorially. to survive as there was In 1910, after Joseph Featherston 307, and launched late in 1874, the greater Masterton area”. The appearance of a for the paper, guillotine, I off er to stake twenty-fi ve The bi-weekly Pahiatua Association was modelled During its fi rst decade, a lessening demand subsequent owners. Masterton trailing with proprietors’ optimism was In 1878, “Masterton second paper in a town and smaller presses for pounds on the issue, in the Star and Eketahuna Payton died, the Daily on the E. G. Wakefi eld- it was run by Alexander for the weekly budget • Lasting Impressions: 272. justifi ed to some extent had more than twice was often motivated general jobbing work, and hands of a referee, if you Advertiser, begun in Times was operated by a inspired New Zealand Wilson Hogg, later the of news and improved These numbers were, of by advertisements from Greytown’s population by the desire to give employed between 14 and will do the same.” mid-1886, survived private company owned by The story of New Company settlement town’s MP for 21 years communications meant course, supplemented by competing butcheries, and as many residents as voice to a diff erent 20 staff in the composing He called on “our precariously until 1893 members of his family. Zealand Newspapers, scheme, but pitched much and ultimately, in 1909, Wellington newspapers shoe shops and builders; Featherston, Greytown political viewpoint. and machine rooms and to Wellington contemporary when it succumbed to In Carterton, the further down the social Minister of Labour in the 1840-1920 retails for Henry Bannister also and Carterton combined”. deliver papers. to either prove its the competition from Wairarapa Daily News, and economic scale at Ward Government. $69.50 and is available advertised his nine- With two partners, The Star’s William statement or retract it”. the morning edition sent with an ancestry that artisans with little capital He was assisted by from local bookshops, bedroom hostelry, Joseph Payton, who Cargill, owner since It is unknown whether north by the Wairarapa involved the Wairarapa and few moneyed, ‘Old A.W. Renall, another claiming it was the had been watching 1892, also published the Evening Post did Star. Weekly Observer and or by contacting Country’ connections,” prominent local Liberal “fi nest and most Masterton’s progress the Eketahuna and either. It was promptly Wairarapa Leader, fi rst Fraser Books at: according to The and town mayor for commodious hotel with keen interest, Pahiatua Mail as Lying between replaced by the tri-weekly appeared in 1906. It was Look of Greytown: periods during the [email protected] this side of the launched the an evening daily, Masterton and Pahiatua Herald. subsequently run by the New Zealand’s fi rst 1880s; together Rimutaka”. Wairarapa Daily printing it by Greytown, In 1895, Joseph Ivess, Roydhouse family. planned inland they ensured a Very quickly, in November 11am, in time Carterton had ‘Rag-planter’ James town. lively debate on who sometimes saw the valley’s 1878. to catch the newspapers H. Claridge launched The fi rst years local, regional and opportunity where there centre of Payton was morning train from 1878. Martinborough’s in Greytown national issues. was very little, launched a commercial a pragmatic north. The tri-weekly only newspaper, the were hard; heavy Both papers competing tri-weekly. gravity shifted businessman It was not Wairarapa Valley bush had to be survived through As the Mataura Ensign to Masterton and he would until 1894 that Guardian was converted into the 1890s, in put it: “ ... the indefatigable and, although have spoken Eketahuna had short-lived, but pasture and the part because of newspaper incubator has nearby Waiohine it hardly for many small- its own, locally another tri-weekly, just launched his latest justifi ed a fl urry town newspaper the town’s steady produced paper, River regularly growth. the Wairarapa ‘buster’”. fl ooded. of newspaper proprietors when he the tri-weekly Weekly Observer The Pahiatua Argus, activity, two more stated editorially: According to the Eketahuna Express Although the Cyclopedia of New was published from Ballance, Wairarapa’s population newspapers were “We do not believe and North Wairarapa January 1882. When, Mangatainoka, launched. in newspapers that do not Zealand, Masterton’s Courier. had increased from barely population had reached after changes in ownership Makuri, 100 Europeans in the early The News Letter began pay. With the improvement and name, it merged with Kaitawa and in 1876, subsequently “They may for a season 3493 in 1896. of roads and the rail’s 1850s to about 2000 by The publication’s 1897 the Wairarapa Leader Makakahi Glaswegian Alexander amalgamated with the dazzle their readers Joseph Payton was born in advance up the valley, English-born Richard Wakelin the mid-1860s, contact edition, dependent on the which, also a tri-weekly, Advertiser’s Hogg spent nearly 20 years News to form the tri- with their brilliance and Birmingham in 1843, sailed Masterton’s two dailies arrived in Wellington in between the townships on the Victorian gold elds to Wellington in 1865, and advertising support it got, 1850 and edited the was begun in opposition title took, as weekly Wairarapa overwhelm them with increasingly catered spread along the valley as a miner, storekeeper taught in Wellington before reported fulsomely that Independent through most of in 1897, the Taranaki Guy Scholefi eld Register and exited after an unlimited quantity of for communities to the fl oor, across rivers and and journalist. Hogg then joining Richard Wakelin, the town: the decade. After running the Herald commented: “It pointed out drily an altogether too common reading matter, but the north and Greytown’s along rudimentary roads, travelled to New Zealand his father-in-law, as partner “.... makes very laudable Wairarapa Mercury in 1867 styles itself the Liberal in Newspapers where he was a reporter on fi re in 1878. time comes when they in the Wairarapa Standard. Wairarapa Standard to and starting the Wairarapa was no simple matter. eff orts to produce for its organ of the Wairarapa in New Zealand, the Otago Guardian and other The tri-weekly have to carry less sail and He then purchased the those in the south. Journal the next year, he In 1867, Richard own requirements and ... the paper contains a “cognisance South Island papers, before Wairarapa Free Press, often furl their canvas Masterton-based Wairarapa Rail from Wellington brie y edited the New Wakelin, one of the for those of an extended very large pennyworth of of every little country’s press pioneers, moving with his second wife launched in September altogether.” Register which became the reached Featherston Zealand Mail in Wellington at reading matter ...” settlement in that and family to Masterton in Wairarapa Daily in 1878. district in all such lines the beginning of the 1870s was briefl y involved 1878, did not survive the At the same time his in 1878, Woodside 1884, where he edited and For many years he was sole as grain, fl our, fruits, before returning to the A number of Wairarapa part of the Bush”. arrival of Wairarapa’s fi rst [Greytown] and in the establishment part-owned the Wairarapa newspaper was noted for proprietor and editor of what dairy produce, vehicles Wairarapa to establish the papers included It did not last long. of Greytown’s fi rst Star until 1892. daily two months later. its production excellence became the Wairarapa Daily of all kinds, agricultural Masterton in 1880; in Wairarapa Standard in 1872. Featherston in their According to the newspaper, the PHOTO/ALEXANDER To the surprise of and it was reported that Times in 1892. implements, and the 1889 “Eketahuna was the PHOTO/NEWSPAPERS mastheads for strategic Cyclopedia of New Wairarapa Mercury, TURNBULL LIBRARY many, by the 1878 census “Payton kept plant and PHOTO/MEGAN PAYTON ‘end of the line’ on the IN NEW ZEALAND reasons, but the township Zealand, it “expired