Talk:Port Phillip Herald

Have created the article The Herald (Australia)

Keep seperate

This paper PPH is important historically. It has only a tenuous link with Melbourne Herald let alone current Murdoch organs. A lot would be lost if they were merged I believe: all this history would inevitably be subsumed by the juggernaut of a monster herald-sun entry. Please keep seperate all victorian colonial newpapers where there unique identity may be preserved.Lentisco 00:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

It's the same paper as the later 1855-1990 Herald - makes no sense to keep it separate. PMA 04:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

NO. I dont agree. Am I right in saying that the current Herald Sun is the 'same' newspaper? Its important to keep seperate identity. Esp relevant to early Melbourne history and its assocition to JPF. Otherwise as I said previously it will swamped by the current herald sun indentity. May I suggest you read the Hauser book. The Gaylard book is a thin attempt by Murdoch to link his name however tenuously to the Victorian pastLentisco 05:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be driven by Murdoch hatred - there seems to be little point in talking to you. PMA 05:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

No, Im just concerned with keeping historically distinct organs seperate. From your logic The Sun News-Pictorial (not to mention The Herald) would be merged and subsumed by the entry for Herald Sun. Would this be right? please feel free to disabuse me. I still stand by the Hauser book for a broad INDEPENDENT overview of the first 100 years of newspapers in Victoria. That cannot be said for the Gaylard book. Ill repeat MH is not connected to PPH except by the word 'herald ' in its mast and they were both published in Melbourne. Hauser lists the many owners of PPH and its subsequent incarnations and mastheads. As I have said before the link is highly tenuous and only partly nominal. Lentisco 04:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Lentisco here - he makes a good case for a seperate article. Rebecca 02:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

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Both are considered the same paper with slightly different names - you consider the Port Phillip Herald and the Melbourne Morning Herald to be connected but not the post-1855 Herald for some reason. PMA 01:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Kim Lockwood on the whole thing

The Port Phillip Herald - Impartial but not neutral by Kim Lockwood

IT IS probably a good thing that the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, visited the small settlement on the banks of the Yarra River in 1837. And it is also probably a good thing that he was a traditionalist.

Had he not named the settlement in the customary way, the people of Australia's second city might now be reading the Bearbrass Bugle, because the tiny scattering of tents and slab huts was then known as Bearbrass.

But he named it Melbourne, after a VIP back in England (in this case the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne). And it grew quickly. It was not long before Melbourne was a fast-growing shipping, supply and banking centre, with more than 4000 inhabitants clustered on the shore of Port Phillipn Bay.

Into this burgeoning town in 1840 came George Cavenagh (1808-1869). Cavenagh was born in India, the son of a major in the East India Company’s army. He came to Sydney in 1825 and after wroking as a magistrates’ clerk and farmer, by 1836 he was editor of the Sydney Gazette.

Cavenagh took his wife and eight children, staff and machinery to Melbourne, and on January 3, 1840, published the first issue of The Port Phillip Herald. He directed the paper with an astute invective. He was often involved in litigation, and was the defendant in the first civil libel case in the colony.

He was Protestant in principle, but was sympathetic towards Catholics, and won the support of the Irish community. His enemies nicknamed him “The Big Drum”, either because he was supposed to have been a drummer boy or because he was hollow and insincere and made a big noise. He retired in 1853, returned briefly the next year, and retired for good in 1855.

Cavenagh was larger than life: powerfully built, he dressed well and usually carried a riding whip - which he sometimes used to defend himself from assault.

His paper was not the first in the town. That was the Melbourne Advertiser, a hand-written weekly of 30 copies produced on January 1, 1838. Cavenagh's paper was challenged by the two existing publications, The Gazette and The Patriot, but by 1841 was outselling them. The first edition was free. Later editions sold for sixpence. In its early life it adopted the motto "Impartial — but not neutral", which ran under its masthead for the next 50 years.

In 1849 Cavenagh went daily, and changed the name to The Melbourne Morning Herald and General Daily Advertiser. In 1855 it was The Melbourne Herald for a week, before settling on the name it held proudly for the next 135 years, The Herald.

In 1869 it became the evening daily Melburnians cherished – it had a circulation of more than 520,000 at its peak 100 years later – and stayed so until it merged with its sister paper, The Sun News-Pictorial, in 1990, to form the Herald Sun, now the largest circulating daily in Australia.

What sort of paper was it in those early days, those days of muddy streets, candle-lit rooms and horse-drawn transport?

From its earliest days, news was always its watchword, despite the advertisements on the front page. In the 1850s, of course, one word told the story: gold. But other news constantly bubbled in The Port Phillip Herald. On November 12, 1850, it ran what today would be called a "banner" headline: "Glorious news. Separation at last!" Victoria was to become a self-governing colony. And in central Victoria, Ned and Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne accounted for two years of news in The Herald, news that came to an end on November 11, 1880, when Ned was hanged.

Kim Lockwood, a journalist for 35 years and author, editor or contributor to 13 books, is a keen student of Australian history.