New England's History

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 12 - Hard Times: the early life of David Drummond

David Drummond 1907: For Drummond, his arrival in Armidale one cold day in 1907 marked the start of the rest of his life.

This is the twelfth in a series on the history of the media and especially the newspaper press in New England, the fifth column on the emergence of the NSW Country Party

Following the reformation of the NSW Progressive Party in October 1919, the Farmers and Settlers’ Association (FSA) executive asked its branches to look for suitable candidates for the forthcoming state elections.

One Sunday in October, the young Inverell sharefarmer David Drummond delivered the sermon at the Church on Thomas Browning's property at Arrawatta. Inverell stock and station agent Ray Doolin was a member of the congregation.

We were looking for new candidates ..., young men for preference ... I was so impressed with his earnest delivery and voice, I said to Bowling, "Dave is one of the candidates we are looking for." Next day I got a few together, Tom Bowling, R.J. Higgins, A. Macfadden, and went out to the farm. Drummond was working on shares

Drummond was surprised. The previous year he had declined an invitation to run because he felt that he was not ready. This time he told the delegation that he would give them an answer after he discussed it with Farmers and Settlers’ members and his friend Arthur Cosh.

A few days later after talking to Cosh, Drummond said he would stand and then accepted nomination from the Mt. Russell Branch of the FSA.

In some ways, Drummond was a surprising candidate. He was young, very serious, deaf and lacked formal education.

Drummond was born on 11 February 1890 at Lewisham, Sydney, fourth son of Scottish parents Morris Cook Drummond, stonemason, and his wife Catherine, née McMillan.

Catherine died in 1892. Morris married again, with a daughter now added to the family. Then in 1896 Morris died, leaving the family in financial distress.

In 1901, Drummond was awarded a Presbyterian Church scholarship to study at Scots College. While at Scots he suffered an illness that left him deaf.

Drummond lost his scholarship and, with age falsified from twelve to fourteen, began working in May 1902. In October he came into the custody of the New South Wales State Children's Relief Board as a ward of the state

Initially Drummond was sent to a farm home at Pokolbin established to manage problem children. There conditions were quite unpleasant.

“Thus began my practical education in child welfare”, Drummond later wrote. “It included a knowledge of spies who urged lads to run away and then betrayed them to those in control. There were good reasons for running away, but I trusted no one.”

The farm home was closed and, apart from a brief period back at school, the lad worked on farms around the Hunter.

Then one cold day in 1907, the seventeen year old Drummond arrived in Armidale carrying all his possessions in a cheap carry-all. To Drummond, this day marked the start of the rest of his life.

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 11 - Drummond emerges on the political stage

The 1915 attempt by the NSW Farmers and Settlers’ Association to form a new political force by aligning with G S Beeby and his Progressive Party had failed in the tumultuous events surrounding the 1916 conscription referendum.

Labor Premier William Holman was expelled from the Party over his support for a yes vote. The Holman group joined with the Liberals to form a new party, the Nationalists, with Holman as premier. The Beeby group were effectively absorbed into the Nationalists,

Agitation for the formation of a country party continued, although many country people opposed the idea for fear of splitting the non-Labor vote.

In November 1918, Premier, W.A. Holman introduced one of the Progressives' platform measures, proportional representation. This provided for five-member city constituencies and three-member country ones.

This decision drastically changed the political outlook. The fear of splitting the non-Labor vote was removed, for the new system allowed surplus country votes to be distributed to the Nationalists and vice-versa.

In March 1919, the FSA declared that it would run its own candidates at the following election. In September, the FSA Conference instructed the Association's executive to open discussions with all other party primary producer bodies about uniting 'in one political body known as the Country Party to secure representation in the next Parliament. Beeby had also now broken with the Nationalists.

Discussions began between the various groups, culminating in the reformation in October 1919 of the Progressive Party as an amalgam primarily of the FSA, the Graziers' Association, and the Beeby group.

The inclusion of the Graziers' Association represented a significant change in the balance of forces within the countryside.

Originally called the Pastoralists' Union, the Association had been formed by the large pastoralists as a response to the industrial troubles of the 1890's.

Its involvement in the new party joined the FSA's large membership and extensive branch structure with the Graziers' Association's financial resources, including its Special Fund established in 1916 to fund political campaigns.

The ripples from these various moves spread across the countryside.

One Sunday early in 1918, David Drummond, a young Inverell share farmer, was invited to the home of a fellow farmer. 'To my surprise I was met there by a deputation which invited me to nominate for the next State Elections.'

Drummond, feeling that he was not prepared, declined the offer. However, with the announcement of the formation of the Progressive Party, and a request by the FSA executive to branches to look for suitable candidates, Drummond received another offer that he did accept.

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 10 - A country party to serve country interests

Hay bailing late 1880s. The expansion of farming in the period 1890-1910, the problems faced by farmers in, laid the base for the emergence of the Country Party. Photo Museum Applied Arts and Sciences.

This is the tenth in a series on the history of the media and especially the newspaper press in New England, the third column on the emergence of the NSW Country Party

In my last column I referred to the relationship between David Drummond and press man Ernest Christian Sommerlad, a relationship that was critical to Drummond’s somewhat unexpected election to the NSW Parliament on 20 March 1920 as one of two Progressive Party members for the multi-member Northern Tablelands electorate.

The proposal to form a country party for country people had had a long and chequered history. The need for better country representation had been widely accepted in country areas, particularly among farmers, but there was no agreement as to the best way of achieving this objective.

Should it be done via a new party or by working through existing political institutions? Attitudes here were further complicated by the rise of the new Labor Party which created new political divides.

The result was a period of experimentation and change. In 1892, 1902 and 1913 'Country Parties' had been formed by parliamentarians within the existing parties to represent country interests, but each had failed and disbanded quickly. Then in 1917 two embryo country parties emerged in 'Uncle Wiseman's' Country Party, sponsored by J.S. Stephen the editor of the Farmer and Settler, and in G.S. Beeby's Progressive Party, though neither was immediately successful.

The Farmers and Settlers Association (FSA), the main farmer organisation in New South Wales, was deeply involved with this period of experimentation. Better communications in combination with new technology had led to rapid expansion of farming, especially dairying on the coast, wheat inland.

The new generally small scale farmers faced significant problems in markets, prices, finance and the supply of schooling and other services. Economically vulnerable, they focused on cooperative action and were more radical than the conservative pastoral and grazing interests.

The FSA had been non-party political in approach. However, by 1905 opinion had changed sufficiently for its Conference to pass a motion providing for the selection of FSA candidates. Thereafter the supporters of independent action lost ground, and the re-grouping of the non-Labor forces to form the Liberal Party resulted in the Association entering into informal alliance with the Liberals.

Many Labor supporters now left the FSA which launched an aggressive recruitment campaign to rebuild numbers. This brought in many small farmers such as Drummond who were uncommitted or opposed to the Liberal Party.

From the 1913 FSA Conference those supporting independent action were clearly in the majority, although there was also still majority support for that action to include some form of electoral alliance between Association candidates and the Liberal Party.

In 1915, the FSA the Association decided to form an alliance with G.S. Beeby and his Progressive Party. A 'Progressive Party' platform was adopted and a Political Executive Committee formed.

This move was aborted by the split in the Labor Party over conscription and the subsequent formation of the National Party which effectively absorbed Beeby and his Progressives. However, the base had been laid for a new political party.

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 9 - Drummond, Sommerlad and the emergence of the Country Party in New England

David Drummond, Glen Innes, early 1920s. A former ward of the state, Drummond had left school at twelve, was very deaf and had worked as a farm labourer. He was not expected to win election, but did so in part because of his relationship with pressman Ernest Christian Sommerlad. This is the nineth in a series on the history of the media and especially the newspaper press in New England, the second column on the emergence of the NSW Country Party

The country press has always reflected the political climate of the time both in reporting and through their active involvement in the promotion of their communities. It has also reflected the attitudes and interests of particular proprietors.

At the time the first papers emerged in Northern NSW, the broader New England, they reflected the divide between liberal and conservative interests. They also reflected a then key issue, the question of separation of Queensland and the possible creation of a new colony in Northern NSW.

As time passed, the position of the papers evolved to reflect both changing political trends and, more importantly, economic and social changes relevant to their particular areas.

In the lower Hunter, the Miners Advocate and Northumberland Recorder began publication in 1873 and then grew rapidly, becoming a daily in 1876 under the title Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate. Its masthead was ornate, carrying a sketch of a colliery pit-top, including poppet head and chimney.

The Herald shared many of the attitudes and concerns of papers further north, including the idea of Sydney oppression of Newcastle and country interests, and would play an active role in the formation of the NSW Country Press Association.

Despite these links, the paper’s industrial interests precluded participation in newspaper activities further north that would now facilitate the emergence of two new political movements.

The first of these was the Country Party, the second a resurgent new state movement. Both would help shape New England’s history over the twentieth century.

Like the Labor Party which first entered Parliament in NSW in 1891, the Country Party was based in part on industrial interests, the need to give primary producers and especially small farmers their own voice in Parliament.

The party also drew from the idea of an oppressed country, an oppressing city, articulated in what Professor Don Aitkin described as a sense of country mindedness.

In Northern NSW, the new party also supported and drew from the separation movement, a movement that gave it a town base that it might not otherwise have obtained as a rural party.

At the elections on 20 March 1920, just over one hundred years ago, the Progressive Party as the Country Party was then known entered the NSW Parliament.

David Drummond was one of those elected for the new multi-member Northern Tablelands electorate.

He should not have won. A former ward of the state, he was just thirty, had left school at twelve, was very deaf and had worked as a farm labourer. He did so in part because of his relationship with pressman Ernest Christian Sommerlad.

In my next columns, I will look at that campaign and the relationship between Drummond and Sommerlad.

Wednesday, July 08, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 8 - Press cooperative becomes a powerful force

Ernest Christian Sommerlad. Born of German immigrants, E C Sommerlad played a major role in New England's history and in the history of the New England and Australian press. This is the eighth in a series on the history of the media and especially the newspaper press in New England, the opening column on the emergence of the NSW Country Party

In my last column I spoke of the birth of the NSW Country Press Association in October 1900 and of the role of Thomas Mitchell Shakespeare in helping the new baby survive.

Herding the fiercely independent country papers into cooperative action was like herding cats.

The papers needed to cooperate to break the hold of the Sydney advertising agents who maximized their returns by playing one paper against another. They needed to cooperate on common industrial matters and on matters such as training and the use of defamation actions to cripple papers. But, like cats, each paper would fight the others for a small bowl of food.

The formation of the New South Wales Country Press Cooperative Company Limited was key to the transformation of the Association from a herd of cats into a powerful force.

In 1904 when T M Shakespeare was appointed as Association secretary and head of the Cooperative Company, the Company was struggling to sell the necessary shares to allow formation.

When the Company was formed, its issued capital was only £253. Yet from that small base and under Shakespeare’s leadership it became a significant commercial force in selling advertising and supporting its members.

As one early example, the outbreak of war in 1914 resulted in interruption in newsprint supplies from Canada. The very survival of country newspapers was threatened. The smaller papers could not buy paper or could only do so at exorbitant prices.

The Country Press Cooperative Company stepped into this void, buying in bulk and then supplying paper at reasonable prices to its members. Initially this was just to NSW papers, but then spread to country papers in other parts of the country.

In 1928, T M Shakespeare finally stood down. His place as head of the Cooperative Company was taken by Northern pressman Ernest Christian Sommerlad, a significant figure in the history of New England as well as the New England and Australian newspaper press.

E C Sommerlad was born at Tenterfield on 30 January 1886, youngest of twelve children of German immigrant parents John Henry Sommerlad, farmer, and his wife Louisa Wilhelmina, née Marstella.

The Sommerlads are part of another thread in New England’s history, the rich contribution made by German immigrants in the Hunter and Clarence Valleys and on the New England.

In my next column I will look at E C Sommerlad’s role, in so doing introducing you to the political movements that helped shape New England’s history in the first decades of the twentieth century,

Wednesday, July 01, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 7 - Birth of Country Press Association

Thomas Mitchell Shakespeare (1873-1938), editor Grafton Argus and later founder of the Canberra Times, who helped transform the NSW Country Press Association. This is the seventh in a series on the history of the media and especially the newspaper press in New England

One of the challenges we face as historians, whether professional or amateur, lies in the difficulties involved in breaching the barriers imposed by the present to enter that far country called the past.

What we think and feel about the past, the questions we ask of the past, is inevitably affected by current values and attitudes and by the world around us in often unseen ways.

Today we are used to instant communication, to the sudden emergence and sometimes disappearance of new movements or organizations. It is hard to really visualize a world in which the only forms of communication were by letter or telegram on urgent matters, one in which travel could be slow and expensive despite the spreading railway lines.

The many country papers at the end of the nineteenth century faced common problems that dictated cooperative action. These included industrial legislation, the cost of postage and the constant threats of defamation actions that could bankrupt individual papers.

Access to metropolitan and Government advertising was a particular problem. The many generally small country newspapers had no means of marketing directly. To advertisers, the large number of generally small country newspapers made placement of ads difficult and costly.

Advertising agents stepped into this gap selling advertisements in supplements that papers were then forced to carry at low profit margins as the only way of accessing metropolitan advertising.

The need for cooperative action was widely recognized, but hard to achieve. The various editors or proprietors knew or knew of each other though their papers, but only met at irregular intervals usually on the sidelines of particular conferences or meetings. The fierce competition between papers also impeded cooperation.

In 1890, a first attempt to form a provincial press grouping failed because of lack of interest. Discussions continued, but there was no concrete action.

In 1889, proposed changes to the NSW Defamation Act brought country and metropolitan proprietors together in an industry meeting. There a group of country proprietors including W H Midgley (the North West Champion, Moree) and James C Leslie (Corowa Free Press) formed a committee to try to bring an association into existence.

Progress was slow, but finally in October 1900 the NSW Country Press Association was born. The new Association had aspirations, but almost no money.

By October 1903, the Association was in crisis. Revenue for the year was just £52, the salary of the Association’s secretary was still in arrears, while the Association had a net debt £51. The outlook seemed grim.

Just three years later, the position was very different. Central to that transformation was one man, Thomas Mitchell Shakespeare, proprietor of the Grafton Argus and later founder of the Canberra Times.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 6 - Media feels the weight of change

To this point we have followed the growth of the newspaper press in Northern NSW, the broader New England. Over the next few columns we will follow the story across the twentieth century.

It’s a story of competition, but also cooperation. It’s a story of commercial challenge, of success. But it’s also a story of radical change and, in the end, decline and lost influence.

At federation in 1901, even small towns had at least one newspaper, many had two or even three, By 1950, consolidation had reduced the number of papers, but they remained locally or regionally owned.

As radio came during the 1930s, the new stations were again locally or regionally owned. As TV came to the North from 1962 with the establishment of Newcastle’s NBN, local or regional ownership continued.

This was a very different world.

In 1959 in Armidale, for example, the Armidale Express was the main source of local news, but many Armidale people also bought the Northern Daily Leader as the premier daily in inland New England providing news from across the North. The Sydney Morning Herald had increased its market share, but was still being outsold by the Leader.

Commercial radio coverage including news was dominated by the Tamworth based Broadcast Amalgamated controlled New England radio network (2TM, 2AD, 2VM, 2NZ and 2RE).

Newspapers, radio and then TV had a strong local and regional focus that extended beyond news coverage into the direct promotion of community activities that might benefit economic, social, cultural and community development while also serving commercial interests.

The media had become an integral part of community infrastructure, broadly defined.

By 2000, local or regional ownership had shrunk to a few independents. Ownership of the newspaper press across Northern NSW was split between two competing media groups, Rural Press and APN, with the Newcastle Herald owned by Fairfax. .

These ownership changes coincided with the rise of the use of the term masthead as substitute for newspaper and had a profound impact on newspaper performance.

The split between APN and Rural Press ownership of the Northern Rivers papers, together with a more localized paper focus, slowed and then effectively stopped the flow of information between coast and inland and indeed to a degree within the inland.

Newspaper concentration together with tensions between APN and Rural Press also greatly impeded the work of the Country Press Association, the industry’s main cooperative body.

In 1902, these developments lay far ahead. In my next column, I will at what we might think of as the golden age of the New England press.

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 5 - The role of newspapers in town development and rivalries

Oh! advance, advance New England

To thy place of hope and pride,

Resist the scorn of Sydney’s sneers,

As rocks resist the tide…

Discord and discontent prevail,

Neglect has sown the seed,

Your wants o’erlooked, demands ignored,

By Sydney’s hungry greed

Glen Innes Examiner

The many newspapers established across Northern NSW over the second half of the nineteenth century were a disparate lot.

The relative cheapness of printing technology a weekly newspaper could be started for somewhere between £300 and £600, encouraged multiple newspapers in even small centres.

In political terms, the papers broadly supported either the liberal or conservative political causes. Many, such as the Armidale Telegraph, were established or sponsored by political figures seeking to advance their interests or to advance particular causes, including the establishment of a new colony in Northern New South Wales.

Then, as now, those in power were prone to channel Government advertising to the papers that supported them.

Remains: Dorrigo railway. Fights between towns and their newspapers prevented the construction of east-west railways. When construction of a line between Guyra and Dorrigo finally began, it was halted by the Depression.

Despite the many differences between papers, a common theme in their introductory statements was, in the words of newspaper historian Rod Kirkpatrick, the material and social advancement of town and district and the enlargement of the district’s political power.

This made them intensely parochial, supporting their town against others in the fight for better facilities and transport, something that bedeviled attempts to gain things such as east west rail links. The Clarence fought the Richmond to the point that neither could win.

As the drift to the city became clearer, the papers began to articulate common themes, the idea of an oppressed country, and oppressing city, themes that would lay the basis for the emergence of the Country Party and a powerful new state movement.

One of the least recognized things in this process is the role played by town mercantile and professional interests, key advertisers in the local press.

The growth of towns and villages across the North had seen the accumulation of wealth among groups such as storekeepers that was then reinvested in building and in town and village real estate with the hope of future profit. The results of this process survive today in our built landscape.

As it became clear that the hopes of town development could not be realized, the town elites began to look for new development options, feeding into the changing views being expressed by the papers.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 4 - the drift to the city begins

Between 1861 and 1901 the population of regional NSW grew from 261,573 to 878,475. During that same period, the number of provincial newspapers grew from 21 to 193.

By 1900, 127 towns had at least one newspaper, 58 had two or more.

On the New England Tablelands, no less than fourteen newspapers were established between 1856 and 1878, four in Inverell, three each in Armidale, Tenterfield and Glen Innes plus one in Uralla.

Many of the new papers had relatively short life spans.

The peripatetic Frank Newton first established the Grafton Herald (1864-65) before coming to Armidale to establish the Armidale Telegraph (1865-1872) and then the Inverell Dispatch and Central New England Advertiser (1873-78).

Newton’s moves reflected local politics as well as commercial pressures. Both the Armidale and Inverell papers were established to represent squatter interests at a time when their landholdings were under threat.

While many papers had relatively short life spans, there were also titles that we know today, including the Armidale Express (1856), Tenterfield Star (1871), Glen Innes Examiner (1874), Inverell Times (1875) and the Uralla & Walcha Times (1876).

There is a problem here for historians who rely on local newspapers. As newspaper historian Rod Kirkpatrick remarked, history is written by the winners.

Few copies of these early newspapers have survived. In the case of the Armidale Telegraph, for example, the only extant copies are pages of one issue found under the floor boards of an Armidale house under renovation. For most, we know about them primarily from reports in other newspapers.

This means that our views are formed by papers such as the Glen Innes Examiner where copies do survive. As we have seen with Frank Newton, the papers represented particular interests. We cannot assume that the views expressed in any one paper are in fact representative.

Regardless of the individual biases of particular papers, they were all intensely parochial, concerned to boost the towns on which their business depended and to attract the services demanded by a growing but still sparsely spread population.

This parochialism supported and fed into rivalry between towns, a rivalry that was played on by politicians and impeded cooperative action. Now this parochialism was to be tempered by harsh economic realities, forcing the papers to cooperate.

Central to this was the growing dominance of Sydney. While the NSW regional population still outnumbered that of Sydney by almost two to one, Sydney’s share of the NSW population had increased from 26.24% in 1871 to 35.42% in 1901, a trend that was continuing.

Wednesday, June 03, 2020

History of the New England newspaper press 3 -the rise of newspapers as New England towns flourished

The second half of the Nineteenth Century was a period of town formation across Northern NSW, the broader New England. With time, the slab buildings of early European settlement were replaced by more substantial structures that still form the core of our built landscape.

The squatters, merchants and still small professional and trade classes all faced communications problems.

The squatters and their agents needed to place legal advertisements about absconding servants, debts and stolen stock.

The merchants and professionals wanted to advertise their wares in town and into the countryside beyond. They also wanted to promote their towns and villages. All groups had a need for printing such as invoices, flyers, letterhead and catalogues.

Merchants and townspeople combined to sponsor the formation of newspapers. In Armidale, for example, a public meeting was convened on 1 December 1855 to consider the best way to establish a local paper for the New England district. A fund raising committee was formed and finally raised £89 12s and 6d.

The results of the meeting were advertised in the Maitland Mercury, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Empire. Two Mercury staff members decided to accept the challenge.

Early in 1856, William Hipgrave and Walter Craigie loaded their newly acquired printing press and other kit onto a bullock dray and set out from Maitland for Armidale. It took them twenty seven days. They called their paper the Armidale Express, with the first edition appearing on 5 April 1856.

The genesis of Tamworth’s first paper, the Tamworth Examiner and General Advertiser for the Northern Districts of New South Wales, later just the Tamworth Examiner, was somewhat similar.

Action began when printer John Ambrose Gallagher wrote from Yass to a number of Tamworth business houses canvassing support for the establishment of a local newspaper. The response was positive, with business owners pledging their support and that of the townsfolk, even offering a small subsidy to help Gallagher.

Gallagher declined the subsidy but moved to Tamworth, with the first edition of the paper appearing on 13 April 1859.

The formation of the Tamworth Examiner illustrates another thread in the history of the New England media, the close relationship between newspaper formation and political interests.

In responding to Gallagher, local business interests warned him that the squatters would oppose the paper unless it supported their position. By contrast, many townspeople supported the paper because it might weaken squatter power and further Tamworth’s growth.

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