The Preserving Local History and Educational Trust Seeks Public Help to Locate Missing Historical Newspapers

The Preserving Local History and Educational Trust (Te Pupuri I Nga Hitori o Te Rohe Trust) is reaching out to the public for assistance in tracking down rare and hard-to-locate newspapers published in New Zealand. These historical newspapers, often vital in understanding the social and cultural fabric of early New Zealand, are essential to the Trust’s mission of preserving and digitising local history for future generations.

New Zealand once boasted one of the highest per capita numbers of newspapers in the world during the nineteenth century. Small towns, sometimes with populations in the hundreds, often had competing newspapers. These publications, especially in the goldfields areas, had a short lifespan – many lasted only a year or less. As historian Ian F. Grant notes, more than 40% of newspapers launched in goldfields towns did not survive past one year.

Today, the survival rate of these early newspapers is extremely low, with some only existing in a handful of issues. The Trust has uncovered that some titles, such as the Ross Mercury and Westland Miner, which ran from 1883 to 1885, are now known by only a single issue.

Others, like the Clutha Times and Carterton’s Wairarapa Weekly Observer, are similarly represented by just one issue or none at all. There are several other titles, such as the Arrow Advocate and Foxton Telegraph and West Coast Advertiser, where no known issues have been found. Occasionally, completely unknown newspapers, like the Clarion and Eketahuna Echo (1902), surface, shedding new light on the history of New Zealand's media landscape.

The Trust’s mission is to preserve the stories that have helped shape New Zealand’s communities and to make them accessible to the public through its Your Stories project, which involves digitising historical newspapers. These digitised newspapers will be made available to the public, ensuring that New Zealand’s history is preserved and accessible to all.

The Trust is seeking the public's help to locate copies of these elusive newspapers. Any information on these missing titles, whether it be a specific issue, a possible location, or an archive holding, is vital in completing the digitisation and preservation process.

"We’re hoping that with the help of the public, we can track down these important pieces of New Zealand’s history," says Ross Harvey, Trustee at The Preserving Local History and Educational Trust. "The more we can uncover, the more we can ensure that these stories are preserved for future generations."

To aid in the search for these missing publications, the Trust has created Desiderata lists, which catalogue the missing titles. These lists are now available on the Trust’s website at https://preservinglocalhistory.com/locate-newspapers with additional lists added as the project progresses.

Anyone with information on these historical newspapers can contact the Trust at preservinglocalhistory@gmail.com.

Ends