Chronicle's history began back in 1893:
The delevelopment of The Chronicle as the districts daily newspaper bagan in 1893 when William Charles Nation founded a tri-weekly, the Manawatu Farmer and Horowhenua County Chronicle.
The locality was Shannon and after three years, the name was changed to the Manawatu Weekly. Meantime, in Otaki, Frederick Webbe, began the pro-liberal Horowhenua Times on June 9, 1892. In 1893, Francis Clark Millar took over the paper and changed the name to Otaki Times.
Within months, the paper was sold again, Howard Charles Ferdinand Jacobson electing to change the name to the West Coast Mail and Country Advertiser. Another group of owners and another name in 1896 saw it being published as the Otaki Mail. The New Zealand Cyclopedia lists those owners as Frederick Unwin, Henry A. Solomon and Frank Peun; though the latter should be Penn.
OPPOSITION
It was this same year that a Joseph Ivess appeared in Levin with a printing plant. He established the Levin and Manakau Express and Horowhenua County Advertiser.
In Shannon, W. C. Nation became alarmed and moved the paper there to Levin.
He actually transported the entire premises part of which remains incorporated in the front of The Chronicle building today.
Ivess has sold the Levin and Manakau Express to William John Reid and John McKellop who sold out to Nation, who incorporated their paper in the Farmer. It continued as a tri-weekly for many years.
A John Robertson published the Levin Times for a few issues in 1908 and in 1909 D.S. Papworth founded the bi-weekly Levin Times, which also only survived a few months.
However, Papworth bought out Nation's Farmer for the Horowhenua Publishing Company which turned it into a daily-the Horowhenua Daily Chronicle. Edited by George Powick Brown, it published a sister edition, the Shannon Advocate.
The year 1917 saw the purchase of the company by Herbert George Kerslake and Robert H. Billens. The paper reverted to tri-weekly for the duration of the war, but became a daily again in 1923. in 1920 they started the Shannon News, which became a weekly shortly before expiring altogether in 1940.
IN OTAKI
Back in Otaki, Frank Penn was producing the Mail with Hector (Hec) Martin Jeffery Nicolson as his righthand man. In 1934 Penn sold the Mail to Kerslake and Billens, who set it up in Otaki and then Levin until it was closed down in 1946 and absorbed in The Chronicle.
A number of other publications were established by adventurous newspapermen. In 1911, James Knight published the Horowhenua County Record; in 1915-16 J. W. Thompson the Tatatua Newsnet; and in 1923-25 Archibald C. Holmes published the Horowhenua Review. All were weeklies.
But another weekly was to appear on the scene at mid-century. Alexander Topham Fletcher, who served his apprenticeship with The Chronicle, returned from the war to set up his own printing plant.
In May 1953 he began the Levin Weekly News and in June 1955, The Otaki Waikanae Weekly News. These papers were combined in June, 1968 and the name is now changed to the Weekly News. The printing company and the paper joined The Chronicle's publishing company in 1969, Mr Fletcher becoming a director of kerslake Billens and Humphrey.
Mr L.A. Humphery, who began at The Chronicle in 1920 as a paper boy, eventually joined the directorate and the company changed its name to Kerslake, Billens and Humphery in 1944.
In 1960 the firm of KBH took a major step and joined forces with three other newspaper and a Wellington printing buisness to firm the United Publishing and Printing Company. The result has been a number of technical and mechanical improvements which will have been obvious to readers and advertisers.
Above: Staff of The Chronicle in 1951
Back row: H. Walker, R. Friend, L. Salmons, W. McGettigan, W. Childs, E. Fullarton, G. Reakes, L. Humphrey, H. Ward, R. Billens, G. Kerslake, Mrs. Sellers, Mrs. Wishart, Mrs Weston, Mrs. Parks
Centre row: F. Greenland, C. Humphrey, B. Lovejoy, E. Hansby, E. Wills, M. Foster, G. Dempsey, R. Malcolmson, J. McGhie, J. Lacey
Front row: J. Manley, R. Steer, P. Randall, W. Salmons, F. Vesey, B. Bennett, J. Close, I. Brash, R. Lovejoy.
Driver: T. Marshall. Absent: T. Kerslake
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Back in 1964, The Chronicle was printed on a Cossar reel - fed flatbed |
No matter what the year, paper boys seem to look all alike as they carry out their wrapping job to ensure delivery of The Chronicle. This lot were photographed in 1964. |
Married in Building:
Conatins:
Mr and Mrs R. E. Henderson
Justice of the Peace, the late mr W.C. Nation
