The production of the Nelson Examiner in the context of the early New Zealand press

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XIX, Issue 2, 1 October 1986, Page 123

The production of the Nelson Examiner in the context of the early New Zealand press

LISHI KWASITSU

Printing was introduced into New Zealand in 1830 by the Anglican Church Missionary Society. On the recommendation of the Reverend William Yate, the Mission established a small Albion hand press at Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands for administrative and evangelistic purposes. 1 When colonisation began in earnest a few years later, printing facilities were set up as part of the apparatus of colonial settlement as well as commercial ventures.

The establishment in Wellington on 18 April 1840 of the New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, first published in London on 21 August 1839 as the New Zealand Gazette and Britannia Spectator, was under the impetus of the New Zealand Company, and Samuel Revans, its printer, merely an ‘ostensible owner’. - In Auckland, the New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette was founded on 7 August 1841 as a limited liability company 3 with half the company’s shareholders being officials in Governor Williams Hobson’s administration as well as business entrepreneurs in Auckland. But that was not a common pattern. Nelson’s first newspaper, the Nelson Advertiser and Echo of New Zealand, first appeared in London on 16 August 1841. 4 This was followed by the Whitby Times and General Advertiser, which was issued on 13 June 1841 as a handwritten newsletter aboard the Whitby by Musgrave, Browne and Arnold. Less than a month later on the same vessel, James Smith, E. Wastney and T. Doughty produced a rival newsletter on 8 July 1841 called Hand in Hand and Port Nelson Herald . 5 In Nelson itself, the est-

ablishment of the Nelson Examiner by Charles Elliott with ‘a loan chargeable with interest’ 6 from the New Zealand Company may be seen as a normal commercial undertaking. Elliott decided to come to New Zealand with Frederick Cooper, a literary friend of Mr Aglionby, with whom he hadjointly loaded his printing equipment and personal effects into the Mary Ann by 24 September 1841. But Cooper suddenly dropped out of this initial partnership and disembarked with his family at the Downs on 2 October 1841 7 which was why Elliott travelled to New Zealand under the umbrella of the New Zealand Company with financial guarantees and other forms of support. Elliott thus like Revans became an ‘ostensible proprietor’ 8 of the printing press in Nelson.

That the New Zealand Company owned the types and the press was a general belief among the early settlers. In a letter to the editor published on 3 April 1847, C. A. Dillon accused Elliott of biased reporting in favour of the New Zealand Company because his hands were tied by financial obligations to the Company.

With the single exception of one or two articles, denouncing the New Regulations, has anything condemnatory of their conduct towards the settlers appeared in your paper? ... As to the interest you may have in keeping up the delusion in favour of the New Zealand Company, public report says, and I believe with perfect truth, that the types with which the Nelson Examiner is printed, were given, or lent to you by the New Zealand Company. It is generally understood that your leading articles are written by persons in the Company's employment, or by those who have been or hope to be again in it. Who were for a long time your greatest subscribers? Who the principal advertisers in your paper? Was it not the New Zealand Company? . . . In conclusion, let me assure you, that as long as your journal continues, what is now universally believed to be, the organ of the New Zealand Company, it will never command the respect or confidence to which it, in other ways, is fully entitled; for I must do you the justice to say, that in all other matters, public opinion gives you full credit for having always conducted it in an upright and gentlemanlike manner. 9

In his response to Dillon's charges, Elliott was at pains, as he had been on previous occasions, to explain that his connection with the New Zealand Company was an ordinary business transaction. There is, perhaps, no position more unpleasant than that of an individual who is conscious of being the subject of idle and unfounded rumours, which, without appearing obtrusive, he cannot refute, however deeply they may affect his character and interest. Such has been in some measure our own case, and we are therefore greatly indebted to the Hon. C. A. Dillon for his letter, which appears in this day's paper, as it enables us, without incurring the imputation referred to, to clear up the misconception which exists respecting the present editorship of this journal, and the supposed connexion between the proprietor and the New Zealand Company. It was for the purpose of getting from Mr Dillon a distinct statement of the rumours afloat respecting ourselves, which evidently had led that gentleman to make some of the remarks regarding us in his letter to the Company's Agent, that we waived our reply to them at the time they appeared.

Before noticing any of the public questions touched on by Mr Dillon, we shall direct our attention to those which more immediately affect ourselves. Taking 'public report' for his authority, Mr Dillon tells us that the types with which the Nelson Examiner is printed, were given or lent to us by the New Zealand Company. We assure Mr Dillon that in this instance 'public report' is grossly at fault. The types and printing materials used by us were never the property of the New Zealand Company, but were our own long before we even knew the existence of that body. It is quite true, and so far from making a secret of it, the fact was broadly stated in our very first number, that we were under a pecuniary obligation to the Company, incurred indeed through the deception of a person [Frederick Cooper] who originally embarked with us in our enterprise, and whose liabilities fell upon our shoulders. Our transaction with the Company was a perfect matter of business —a loan, chargeable with interest, of which only a small part now remains unpaid. It is not pleasant to have to trumpet forth our private affairs in this manner,

but there is nothing in them of which we need to be ashamed, and we would far rather openly declare the facts, than stories should be whispered about which are so totally devoid of truth. This transaction between the Company and ourselves has never directly or indirectly influenced the tone of our paper. The gentlemen known as the avowed editors for the greater part of the time it has existed, were far too independent and highminded to prostitute their pens in any service, and, supported as they were by the settlement, we did not hesitate to leave the paper wholly in their hands. The Company never sought by any means to control the expressions of our opinions, and whatever support it has received in the columns of the Nelson Examiner, has flowed from the free and unfettered judgment of the writers. Another matter in which public report is wrong, is that regarding the present editorship of this paper. Mr Dillon says, 'lt is generally understood that your leading articles are written by persons in the Company's employment, or by those who have been, or hope to be again in it.' We here once and for all declare that the proprietor is, unfortunately, reduced to the necessity of becoming his own editor, as the paper barely defrays the expense of printing, and cannot afford to remunerate the services of a writer of ability. Since the end of last September, when Mr C. Elliott returned from Auckland, the leading articles of the Nelson Examiner have, with the exception of three, which were on subjects totally unconnected with the questions between the Company and their landpurchasers, been written solely by him, who alone is answerable for their demerits; nor has there appeared during that time a single notice of an editorial character written by any other person. 1<)

Elliott was by his public admission indebted to the New Zealand Company. The Nelson Examiner was therefore established in commercial circumstances that had political undertones. Printing was introduced to Otago in 1848 for a different reason. W. B. Graham, 'The proprietor of the Otago News came to that settlement entirely as a matter of private speculation'. 11 But the introduction of printing into Canterbury, founded as an offshoot of the New Zealand Company, followed the pattern in the Nelson settlement; 12 a printing press formed part of the impedimenta of the pioneering settlers. In New Plymouth, local pressure from the early settlers led to the acquisition of a second-hand Albion press from Auckland by Garland William Woon and William Collins. 13

The establishment of printing either as part of the colonial settlement equipment or as a commercial enterprise or as a felt local need was far from peculiar to the colonial experience in New Zealand. There are striking resemblances between these settlements and the West Indian islands under British rule as well as the Australian colonies. In Jamaica, Robert Baldwin started printing in 1718 at the invitation of the House of Assembly and the Governor, while in Barbados David Harry set up office as a printer in 1731 as a normal commercial venture. But in Belize, local pressure from some of the magistrates led to the estalishment of a printing press in 1825. 14 The Australian colonies with which New Zealand remained close in most aspects of printing and bookselling throughout the nineteenth century present similar parallels, if somewhat different sentiments. 15 The First Fleet which arrived in Port Jackson in New

South Wales in 1788 had on board 'a printing press, with all needful appliances for a printing office'. 16 The wooden screw press sent there by Captain Arthur Phillip lay unused until about 1796, when George Hughes utilised it to become Australia's first printer. His better-trained successor, George Howe, was a West Indian born in St Kitts. While working as a compositor on The Times, London, he ran into trouble for shoplifting in Alcester, Warwickshire. First sentenced to death for the offence, his sentence was commuted to seven years transportation to New South Wales, where he arrived in November 1800, just at the right time to become the government printer. Two years later, he issued the New South Wales General Standing Orders, the first book to be printed in Australia. He also founded, on 5 March 1803, the first newspaper in the continent: the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. Government support for the press continued when Governor David Collins's small hand press was employed to print government proclamations in Port Phillip, Victoria, on 16 October 1803, but Victoria's first newspaper, the Melbourne Advertiser, was not printed until 1838. Governor Collins carried his press with him when he was transferred to Hobart Town, Tasmania, in 1804, where as in Port Phillip the press was used to print government orders. In 1810, the first newspaper in Tasmania was launched as an official enterprise. The foundation of printing in Queensland is similar to the pattern described above. James Swan, who was first employed as a compositor on the Sydney Colonist by Dr John Dunmore Lang, a Presbyterian evangelist, had also worked on the Sydney Empire before being persuaded to take a small press to Brisbane, on which he printed the Moreton Bay Courier on 20 June 1846. 7 But the printing press in New Zealand was quite different in sentiment from the press in the Australian colonies. While pioneering settlers came to New Zealand of their own free will, and had no animosity towards Britain, a very large proportion of the early Australian settlers were convicts and Irishmen with no friendly attitude to Britain. The tone of the press, therefore, was not unlike that in colonial Ghana.

In designing the Nelson Examiner, Elliott was aiming at the characteristic nineteenth-century newspaper, a newspaper that the pioneering settlers would easily recognise as one of the trappings of modern civilisation. The head line banner of the Nelson Examiner has a seven word compound title: THE NELSON EXAMINER, | AND | NEW ZEALAND CHRONICLE. The first line set in black letter appears to be in the five line pica type cast by Vincent Figgins and has an 'h' with a slightly broken or worn out serif in

issues from 2, no. 92 (9 December 1842) to 13, no. 722 (28 March 1855), and an improvised 'x' in numbers one and two of 12 and 19 March 1842. The third line is a titling roman which appears to be a two line great primer. The title is followed by volume number, place, date and issue number, the volume number and issue number in roman and arabic numerals respectively, and like the imprint, in brevier type. Number one of the Nelson Examiner is dated at Nelson Haven, but subsequent issues are simply dated at Nelson. The editorial is customarily placed on page two (but occasionally appears elsewhere) with its title line followed by place and date laid between double bold and fine rules across a 14.5 em column (varies). Elliott adopted as motto for the Nelson Examiner the assertion that newspapers are essential to protect individual rights and freedom as well as to maintain and develop modern civilisation—a pompous assertion not infrequently encountered in colonial newspapers' prospectuses. The motto quoted in the original French and English, with the English translation only from 6 July 1844, follows the double bold and fine rules:

Les journaux deviennent plus necessaires a mesure que les hommes sont plus egaux, et l'individualisme plus a craindre. Ce serait diminuer leur importance que de croire qu'ils ne servent qu'a garantir la libcrte: ils maintiennent la civilisation. DE TOCQUEVILLE. De la Democratic en Amerique, tome 4, p. 220.

The Nelson Examiner was initially printed on a small demy paper in folio format, usually of 430 mm x 560 mm (varies) making four pages of text and advertisements. Each page was first divided into four columns of 14.5 ems separated by fine rule. The number of pages was doubled to eight from 2 July 1853, but curtailed occasionally as and when shortage of labour or paper required. 18 Early volumes (which ran from early March to the end of February) were paginated continuously throughout and the numbering of the issues started freshly with each new volume. From 1857 onwards new volumes commenced in January and ended with the calendar year in December. On 31 March 1855 the subtitle was dropped and the name of the paper became THE NELSON EXAMINER. For this a banner head was used; one of those brass newspaper heads of the kind manufactured by C. Gibbs (late C. & A. Paas) of London and sold for £3 mainly to newspaper printers in the colonies. Having apparently installed new equipment, Elliott changed the layout of the Nelson Examiner and increased its size from four to six columns of 15.5 ems and paper size usually of 537 mm x 866 mm (varies) and introduced captions for advertisements. On 29 January 1859 Elliott started to insert a shortened date at the top right hand corner of the front page above the title banner. Elliott, however, reverted to the

four column small demy between 22 April 1871 and 11 May 1872 while maintaining the new title banner. Word space between 'Nelson' and 'Examiner' in the title banner, which was twenty-four millimetres when Elliott returned to the demy folio on 22 April 1871, was closed up slightly to about ten millimetres in subsequent issues, apparently for appearance: evidence which suggests that Elliott had cut part of the banner if it was in brass. He returned again to a six column format on 15 May 1872. On 2 July 1873, Elliott introduced a one penny daily newspaper: the Nelson Daily Examiner in a six column format which he maintained until the paper died on 15 January 1874. Close examination and comparison of the title banner of several issues of the one penny daily reveal that Elliott opened up the banner to interpolate the word 'Daily' which was cut in the same size but slightly cruder style.

Aside from the Illustrated Examiner Summary for England (July 1869-November 1869) which is a sixteen-page, four-column, closely printed illustrated magazine, the design of the other two offshoots of the Nelson Examiner, the Wakamarina Intelligencer (28 May 1864-18 June 1864?) and the Nelson Weekly Examiner, later the Nelson Weekly Examiner and Gold-fields Advertiser (5 July 1873-22 November 1873?), is similar to that of the parent paper. The Nelson Examiner was printed under three different types of management: sole proprietorship, dual partnership, and as a joint stock limited liability company. The paper was launched as a sole enterprise on 12 March 1842, and remained so until 13 May 1854 when James Elliott became a joint proprietor, a partnership which was dissolved on 31 December 1861 by mutual consent as a result of James Elliott's protracted illness. 1

DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP NOTICE is hereby given, that the PARTNERSHIP subsisting between CHARLES ELLIOTT and JAMES ELLIOTT, of the City of Nelson, New Zealand, as Printers and Stationers, was DISSOLVED, by mutual consent, on and from the Ist day of January last: And NOTICE is hereby further given, that all DEBTS owing to the said Partnership, up to the 31st day of December now last inclusive, are requested to be paid to Mr ROBERT POWELL, at the Nelson Examiner Office, who is duly authorised to receive the same, and to whom, also, the particulars of all Debts due by the said Firm, up to the last-mentioned date, are requested to be forwarded. And NOTICE, also, is hereby given, that the said Business, since the Ist day of January last, has been carried on solely on account of, and will for the future be carried on by, the said CHARLES ELLIOTT, who will also pay all Debts owing by the said late Partnership up to the said 31st day of December last. As witness our hands, this Seventeenth day of March, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty-two. CHARLES ELLIOTT, JAMES ELLIOTT. Signed in the presence of DONALD SINCLAIR, Solicitor, Nelson. JNO. W. WIGZELL, his Clerk. 22

Charles Elliott assumed sole ownership from 1 January 1862" until 13 April 1872 24 when the Nelson Examiner was bought by a joint stock company and continued as a limited liability company until the demise of the paper in 1874.

PUBLIC NOTICE THE PROPRIETORSHIP of the 'EXAMINER' NEWSPAPER has passed to a JOINT STOCK COMPANY, with limited liability, who will continue to issue the paper in its former shape of a broadside sheet ... By order of the Directors, CHAS. ALLEN, Accountant. 25

Elliott was not entirely responsible for the printing and publication of the Nelson Examiner throughout its life span. As already noted, the paper was printed by Elliott and his brother James for about seven years and seven months. Between 11 September 1873 and 27 December 1873, the paper was printed by a Charles Janion. No records survive to show the type of press on which the Nelson Examiner was printed. Elliott probably first used an Albion hand press and later a Wharfedale press. Having had a snug business 26 in London with his own press and type, Elliott knew what range of types the English newspaper-cum-jobbing printer required. He had Scotch romans and companion italics for the text faces, black letter, sanserifs or grotesques and shaded types in display sizes: very much the sort of fonts printers had in the West Indies under British rule. 7 Elliott also had a number of printer's flowers and typefounders' stock-blocks of wood engravings of a sub-Bewickian character, some of which might have been sold to him by Vincent Figgins, for whom Elliott had inserted the following advertisement on 7 September 1844:

IMPORTANT TO PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS V. &J. Figgins, TYPEFOUNDERS, London, continue to export types, presses, cases, chases, brass-rule, furniture, inks (black and coloured), and every article used in the printing business, of the best manufacture, and AT A REDUCTION IN PRICES FROM TWENTY-FIVE TO THIRTY-FIVE PER CENT., while the assortment of the founts is effected with the greatest regard to economy, rendering their house most advantageous to parties commencing business. V. & J. Figgins impress upon their friends the necessity of giving positive instructions to their agents, to procure all printing materials from the foundry, Nos. 17 and 18 West street, West Smithfield, London. 28 Through examination of the types used in the Nelson Examiner and comparison with standard sources on type design, 29 I have been able to identify some of the fonts used by Elliott. The initials of most of the advertisements are in double pica no. 2 cast by Vincent

Figgins. The text is usually set in brevier which is similar to, but not the same as, that cast by Vincent Figgins in 1841, and in the nonpareil cast by the Vincent Figgins typefoundry. Elliott also used wooden condensed type with slab serifs for the title banner of some of his supplements and for the mast-head of two of his subsidiary newspapers. He also used fonts that are similar to (but not the same as) the sanserif open type cast by Blake and Stephens ca. 1832, and also by Vincent Figgins in 1833 for some of his jobbing printing; as for instance on the title page of J. L. Bailey's The Nelson Directory and Companion to the Almanack for 1859. Comparison with later Figgins specimens (not available to me in Wellington) would probably have permitted more positive identification of some of the other typefaces used by Elliott. Elliott's printing establishment was on a small scale, with (probably) a single press at the commencement of his business. He worked from type set by hand, put to galley, proofed and printed on damp paper following the traditional letterpress techniques.

First issued as a weekly apparently from makeshift premises on government property, 31 Elliott published his paper weekly for a little over a decade before transforming it into a bi-weekly on 5 July 1854" and later into a daily on 4 January 1871. 33 The Nelson Examiner was for more than a decade and a half before the establishment of the Nelson Colonist on 23 October 1857 the only newspaper in Nelson, and became shortly before its death in 1874 the oldest newspaper in the country. During its existence, spanning more than a generation, Elliott issued several monthly summaries for Europe, as well as several monthly summaries for England and innumerable supplements. Elliott's supplements varied in regularity of issue, content and page size from about 145 mm x 285 mm to the size of the parent paper. The first supplement issued by Elliott is unique in many respects. It is a comprehensive historical overview of the Wairau Affray and has a plan of the scene of the conflict between the Maoris and the Europeans at the Wairau plains. The site plan, which was set with types at angles and curves, had watercolour added to it, probably by hand, in three colours of blue, brown and green, which show through the page of the Alexander Turnbull Library copy I have examined. The Nelson Examiner also had three offshoots: the Wakamarina Intelligencer, the Illustrated Examiner Summary for England and the Nelson Weekly Examiner, later the Nelson Weekly Examiner and Goldfields Advertiser. Initially designed for publication as the Nelson Examiner and Wakamarina Intelligencer, it appears this newspaper did not materialise as intended, but was published simply as the Wakamarina Intelligencer.

THE WAKAMARINA INTELLIGENCER

In order to meet the requirements of the rapidly-increasing population located upon the new gold-field at the Wakamarina, the Proprietor of the Nelson Examiner begs to intimate that he has determined on issuing a weekly paper, to be entitled 'The Nelson Examiner and Wakamarina Intelligencer', which will contain all the news of the current week, up to the latest moment previous to its publication, together with every available item of mining intelligence, both from the Wakamarina, and the other gold-fields of the province. The Nelson Examiner and Wakamarina Intelligencer, will consist of six pages, and will be published every Saturday evening, at Canvas Town. The names of intending subscribers, together with advertisements, may be left at Mr Allen's store, Canvas Town. 4

No copies of the Wakamarina Intelligencer later than 18 June 1864 have been found, and one may speculate that the paper did not continue beyond the end of that year. As its name suggests, the Illustrated Examiner Summary for England is an illustrated magazine aimed at an English audience, especially those interested in the socio-economic progress of the colony. The wood engravings for the illustrations wxre obtained from Melbourne; consequently the Illustrated Examiner was brought to a close when the logistics of obtaining the wood engravings from Melbourne became unreliable.

TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS In consequence of the irregularity in the steamers, we have again been disappointed in obtaining our illustrations from Melbourne for the Examiner Illustrated Summary in time for the mail, and we shall therefore discontinue the publication, and in future issue as we have done to-day, a Summary of the ordinary character. Persons who have paid for the Illustrated Summary in advance, shall have their subscriptions accounted for. With the copies of the present Summary transmitted by post, will be given a LITHOGRAPHIC PLAN, SHOWING THE THREE REPUTED SITES OF MOUNT OWEN, and which will be found very serviceable to illustrate the late Inquiry into the Wangapeka Land Sales. Copies will be furnished gratuitously to our Nelson Subscribers with our next Number, as it was impossible to get a sufficient number printed in time for the whole impression of the present issue. 35

The Illustrated Examiner was superseded by the Nelson Weekly Examiner which was transformed by the addition of a subtitle on 2 August 1873 to the Nelson Weekly Examiner and Gold-fields Advertiser to symbolize Elliott's continued attempt to cater for the recreational and information needs of the gold mining communities which developed on the west coast of Nelson during the 1860 s. This apparently last offshoot of the Nelson Examiner was also short-lived, having died a few weeksv" before the parent paper ceased publication. The best known of Elliott's production difficulties, by no means

his worst, is his oft-quoted 'earnest appeal' 37 for treacle. No sooner had Elliott set up business than his ink rollers needed recasting: We beg to inform our readers that there is great probability of the press at which this paper is worked being rendered utterly useless by the want of rollers. These rollers are the instruments used for the purpose of inking the forms, and an essential ingredient in the construction of them is treacle, and treacle we have been unable to obtain for money. If any of our readers have any of this important article, and will spare us some of it for love and money united, we shall be infinitely obliged to them. We are not very particular as to the price, but treacle we must have, or not only the Examiner, but bills, cheques, and the laws of the Benefit Society must remain forever unbedeviled.' 8

When rollers replaced ink balls as instruments for 'beating the forme' in the 1820 s, the essential ingredients for their composition were fine glue and molasses or treacle whose proportion might vary; a typical recipe was 2lb of glue, 6lb of molasses and x fc lb of Paris white. 9 No good printing could be done without ink rollers. As the Nelson Examiner was printed as planned on the Saturday (25 June 1842) following this public appeal, it may be assumed (as Mackay speculates) that Elliott procured some molasses. This nevertheless suggests that Elliott was unable to improvise ink balls, as the Reverend William Colenso, the missionary printer, did a few years before him in 1835. The ingenious Colenso could still print with his relatively poor equipment without rollers. 40 Nineteenth-century printing house working conditions were difficult and unattractive. Pioneering colonial printers encountered several hardships, among which were scarcity of labour and materials.

Despite the general effectiveness of the apprenticeship system as a means of renewing the ranks of labor, there are many indications that journeymen printers were exceedingly scarce throughout the colonial period. They, and their masters too, for that matter, were constantly on the move. A feature of the lives of the eminent printers of that day was their frequent removal in early manhood from one colony to another. 41

Wroth's observation on the labour problems of the colonial printer in eighteenth-century America is applicable to mobility in the printing job market in New Zealand. Samuel Revans, printer of New Zealand's first newspaper, had worked as a newspaper man (shortly after his apprenticeship in London) in Canada where he participated in the Canadian independence movement of Papineau. On leaving Canada, he seems to have had a brief spell of work in the United States of America en route to London, from where he came to New Zealand. Other Wellington printers such as James Muir had a variety of experiences before joining Revans. After his apprenticeship in Edinburgh with Ballantyne, Sir Walter Scott's printers,

Muir worked as a whaler in America 42 before seeking new pastures in New Zealand. William Nation, founder of the Nelson Colonist, had gone first to New South Wales. After a short period on the Sydney Press he established his own paper, the Australian Banner, in Sydney, from where he brought his plant and staff to set up office in Nelson. 43 Most journeymen printers never stayed long on one job, moving often to seek their fortune in various settlements. James Champ, one of the printers who arrived in Nelson in 1842 as a cabin passenger on the same vessel as Elliott, disappeared from view soon thereafter, and it seems Duncan MacKintosh, another printer, disappeared from the printing history of Nelson in 1857. Such labour problems led to delays in presswork, and it seems the Nelson Examiner did not always appear on the dates given on the paper.

We have a great reluctance to trouble our readers with excuses for our shortcomings, trusting rather that their own indulgent kindness will overlook our defects. On the present occasion however, we feel that it is necessary to offer some explanation for the omission of editorial matter, and for our late publication. The assistant on whom we chiefly relied in the printing office, has now been absent from work three weeks on account of ill health, and the whole of the labour has therefore fallen on ourselves. Now however hard one person may strive to do the work of two, it is not easy to succeed, and so we have found on this occasion. As we have taken steps to provide ourselves with the assistance we require, we hope not to be long hampered as we are at present. 46 Unreliable journeyman printers occasioned advertisements such as this: WANTED, a steady COMPOSITOR. Apply at the office of the Nelson Examiner. 47

There were problems with materials as well as with men. There was shortage of virtually all printing materials —ink, paper, type — as most materials had to be imported from Britain, over 22,500 km away by sea. But Elliott does not seem to have suffered much from shortage of type. I have seen only a few instances of mixture of founts, as, for example, the mixture of the letter 'J' italic cap with roman in volume 12, no. 593 (16 July 1853). Some of the 'J' roman caps seem to me to be slightly smaller than the rest of the caps used in the text. In fact Elliott had sufficient supply of types and ink to loan some to Nation, who was unable to commence business for lack of them. When the Proprietor of the Colonist first arrived in Nelson, he was unable to commence work for want of printer's ink, and we supplied him with a cask from our own stock. On another occasion, not having the necessary type for a large Govern-

ment advertisement of a Land Sale, we were again applied to; and not only gave him the use of our forms gratuitously, but altered them to suit his columns. 4 But Elliott suffered severe page shortages, and was forced on many occasions to print the Nelson Examiner on tea paper.

We have for several weeks past been under the painful necessity of printing the Examiner on a wretched species of tea paper, owing to a disappointment in getting our customary shipment from England; and from the scarcity of the article, not only in this colony, but in the neighbouring one of New South Wales, we have been unable to supply our wants from other sources. Miserable as the paper has been we have had to make use of, even this is now so nearly exhausted, that we are driven to the necessity of publishing only a single sheet until the arrival of the Spray from Sydney, which may be expected in about ten days. In order as far as possible to compensate our subscribers, we have printed an extra number of copies of the Government Gazette, the matter from which we are in the habit of transferring to our columns, and shall enclose a copy to each. 4 '

Unreliable supply of printing paper made it difficult for Elliott to make accurate business projections: We stated a few weeks ago that it was our intention to commence the additional issue of our paper on Wednesday, the 23rd instant [March 1853], but we are sorry to say that our present very limited supply of paper will not suffer us to do so. The long-delayed arrival of a ship from England, to which we have been looking for a supply, and a disappointment in another quarter, have put us to great shifts to obtain paper for our regular issue, and it would be useless therefore to commence an additional publication until we are supplied with paper sufficient to enable us to carry it on. We hope that this delay will be but for a short time, as we are very anxious to redeem the promise we have made. 50

Many other colonial printers in New Zealand suffered from paper scarcity. The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator was reported by T. M. Hocken 51 to have been printed on red blotting paper although no such copies appear to survive in Wellington. All forms of communication in the pioneering settlements were poor and rudimentary. Roads were narrow, often impassable in bad weather, and bridges were few or non-existent. An act of God such as the natural swelling of the Waiiti and the Wairoa Rivers could create all sorts of crippling business problems for the printer.

We have to offer a very humble apology to our subscribers for robbing them today of one-half of their customary sheet. The reason of our short-coming is, that having gone into the country on Sunday last, we were caught by a flood, and were unable to get back before Thursday. The Waiiti and the Wairoa rivers, though 'unknown to song', are well understood here to be at times an effectual barrier to those who are on the wrong side of them, particularly when the ferry-boat gets swept away, as was the case in the present instance. Our situation was therefore as helpless as the starling's, for like him we sung, 'I can't get out'. As the small returns of our paper, by compelling us to keep down the expenses of our establishment to

the very low scale of one assistant, throws on ourselves so much of the drudgery, we could not by any possibility make up our leeway, and we had no alternative but a long-delayed publication, or the present expedient, and the latter we thought would be most acceptable to our readers . . . If any of our friends should ever be caught in a like way, we hope they may fare as well as we did at Waimea Farm, and some day we trust the Governor will put a stop to these adverse chances, by giving us good bridges. 52

Despite the above production difficulties, Elliott's presswork is generally good. 'The Elliott printing was excellent, and in lay-out, quality and variety of type and accuracy of type-setting, the Examiner was superior to most of the early newspapers.' But Elliott's production was not perfect. The issues on flimsy paper are barely readable, as Elliott was well aware, and for which he apologised. Some of the other execrably printed issues include part of the front and back pages of volume 12, no. 623 (11 February 1854), and parts of the inner forme of volume 2, no. 60 (29 April 1843). There are several instances of erratic numbering of issues, careless pagination and innumerable issues printed without printers imprint. 4 Printing a newspaper using the most traditional techniques, with uncertain labour and stationery supply and rudimentary infrastructural facilities, is likely to have considerable effect on its management of news, and in a subsequent paper Elliott's treatment of news reporting will be discussed.

REFERENCES This is a slightly modified section of work presented in the Department of Librarianship at the Victoria University of Wellington in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Arts degree. 1 Roderick Cave and Kathleen Coleridge, 'For Gospel and Wool Trade: Early Printing in New Zealand', Printing History, 7 (1985), no. 1, 15-27. 2 Guy H. Scholefield, Newspapers in New Zealand (Wellington, 1958), p. 25. 3 G. M. Meiklejohn, Early Conflicts of Press and Government: a Story of the First New Zealand Herald and the Foundation of Auckland (Auckland, 1953), p. 20. 4 'First Newspaper was Printed in England', Nelson Evening Mail: Centennial Supplement, 1866-1966 (5 March 1966), p. 14. According to Scholefield (p. 156), the Nelson Advertiser was first published on 6 September, 1841. 5 Nelson Evening Mail: Centennial Supplement, 1866-1966, p. 14. 6 Nelson Examiner (NE), 3 April 1847, p. 18, col.l. 7 Lists of Passengers to Nelson, 1841-50 (Bett Collection), 2 vols (ca 1950, typescript copy in A.T.L.), 1:12. 8 Scholefield, p. 156. 9 NE, 3 April 1847, p. 19, c 01.3. 10 NE, 3 April 1847, p. 18, cols. 1-2. 11 Wellington Independent, 22 December 1849. 12 Patrick Day, The Political Role of the Early New Zealand Press: paper presented to the Conference of the Sociological Association of Australia and New Zealand, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, November 1981 (Working Paper no. 14), p. 17.

13 Scholefield, p. 129. 14 Roderick Cave, 'Printing in Nineteenth-century Belize', Library Quarterly, 46, no.l (January 1976), 20-37 (p. 22). 15 Wallace Kirsop, Books for Colonial Readers—the Nineteenth-Century Australian Experience: Sandars Lectures, delivered on 11, 13, 18 and 20 February, 1981, typescript, p. 13. 16 James Bonwick, Early Struggles of the Australian Press (London, 1890), p. 3. 17 Based largely upon The Australian Encyclopedia, 10 vols (Sydney, 1958), V1:312-338, VII:282-6; Australian Dictionary of Biography, 9 vols (Melbourne, 1966), I, 557-9, 562-3. 18 NE, 6 August 1853, p. 3, col. 1. 19 W. G. Brittan & Co., proprietors of the Canterbury Standard, paid £3 for the brass masthead for their paper, a masthead which is one letter longer than 'The Nelson Examiner'. 20 Collaboration between the Elliott brothers might have started earlier but the printer's imprint was changed to reflect joint proprietorship on 13 May 1854. 21 NE, 29 December 1864, p.2, c 01.4. 22 NE, 19 March 1862, p.2, col.l. 23 Though Elliott assumed sole ownership on 1 January 1862 the printer's imprint was not changed to reflect this until 19 March 1862. 24 The printer's imprint was changed to reflect joint-stock ownership on 13 April 1872, but the purchase was published on 15 May 1872, though the notice was dated 14 May 1872. 25 NE, 15 May 1872, p.2, col. 6. 26 Ruth M. Allan, Nelson: A History of Early Settlement . . . (Wellington, 1965), p. 161.

27 Cave, 'Printing in Nineteenth-Century Belize', p. 23. 28 NE, 7 September 1844, p. 105, c 01.2. 29 Talbot Baines Reed, A History of the Old English Letter Foundries . . . , a new edition revised and enlarged (London, 1952); Vincent Figgins Type Specimens 1801 and 1815: Reproduced in Facsimile, edited by Berthold Wolpe (London, 1967); Nicolete Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Typefaces . . . (Berkeley, Calif., 1976). 30 Nelson: C. and J. Elliott, 1859. 31 NE, 30 April 1842, p. 30, c 01.2. 32 The first Wednesday Nelson Examiner was issued on 5 July 1854. 33 The first daily Nelson Examiner was issued on 4 January 1871. 34 The Wakamarina Intelligencer (28 May 1864); the paper has no printer's imprint and it is not known whether it was issued as advertised in Canvas Town or in Nelson.

35 NE, 24 December 1869, p. 6, col. 6. 36 NE, 21 November 1873, p. 3, col.l: 'The Early Edition of the WEEKLY EXAMINER, of Saturday (to-morrow) [22 November 1873] was published yesterday evening, with a Summary of News for England and Australia.' I have been unable to trace any issue of this paper beyond 27 September 1873. 37 Richard Alexander Mac Kay, A History of Printing in New Zealand 1830-1940 (Wellington, 1940), p. 14; Keith Sinclair, 'The Material of History: Early New Zealand Newspapers', New Zealand Department of Education Primary School Bulletin, 6, no.l0(1952), p. 211. 38 NE, 18June 1842, p. 59, c 01.2. 39 T. C.Hansard, Typographia; an Historical Sketch ofthe Origin and Progress ofthe Art of Printing . . . (London, 1825), p. 624. 40 Cave and Coleridge, op. cit.

41 Lawrence C. Wroth, The Colonial Printer (Charlottesville, 1964), p. 158. 42 K. A. Coleridge, 'Printing in Wellington: The Pioneer Period', New Zealand Libraries, 44 (December 1983), 61-65 (p. 62). 43 NE, 12 August 1857, p. 3, col.l. 44 Lists of Passengers to Nelson (Bett Collection), 1:13. 45 Even Elliott himself had considered leaving Nelson but gave up the idea partly on the persuasion of the working classes of Nelson who gave him a beautiful pony. See NE, 1 July 1848, p. 69, c 01.4. 46 NE, 23 February 1850, p. 204, col.l. 47 NE, 11 November 1848, p. 146, col.l. 48 NE, 21 March 1860, p. 2, col. 2. 49 NE, 13 May 1854, p.2, col.l. 50 NE, 19 March 1853, p. 14, c 01.4. 51 T. M. Hocken, 'The Beginnings of Literature in New Zealand: Part 11, the English SectionNewspapers', Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, 34 (1901); 99-114 (p. 104). 52 NE, 29 May 1847, p. 50, col.l. 53 Patricia Mary Burns, 'Foundation of the New Zealand Press, 1839-1850', 2 vols (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Victoria University College, Wellington, 1957), 11, 102. 54 See for instance 28 December 1850, 13 December 1851; 9 December 1848, 5 May 1849; 4 March 1848, 20 May 1848, etc.