Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser

The Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser was established in 1901 by William Murray Thompson and Thomas Elliott Wilson. Thompson was an experienced journalist and Wilson was a newspaper proprietor who at various times ran the Bruce Herald, the Waimate Times, the Egmont Settler and the Mangaweka Settler.

 The newspaper was based at Kāwhia, a small settlement south of Raglan. The area is important to Māori because it was the final landing place of the Tainui waka.  Kāwhia was closed to European settlers from the 1860s until the 1880s as part of King Tāwhiao’s Te Rohe Pōtae. In 1882 the government led the establishment of a new town at Kāwhia. Although King Tāwhiao was not consulted, he eventually agreed to allow Europeans to settle in the area.

 The Settler was the first newspaper to be published in the King Country after the end of Te Rohe Pōtae. By the time the newspaper was established in 1901, Kāwhia was large enough that steamships made frequent stops on route to Taranaki or Auckland. Kāwhia’s harbour location and events such as the annual regatta made it an attractive destination for settlers and visitors.

 Thompson and Wilson purchased the printing press from the recently closed Hawera Morning Post. It arrived by ship in March 1901 and by May the Kawhia Settler was published weekly. 

 In 1904 Thompson died suddenly while at work. Wilson was now the proprietor of the Taihape Post, so the Settler was purchased by a staff member, Herbert Harrison Pettit. As well as editing the newspaper, an article in the Observer said Pettit also ‘set it up in type, machined it, canvassed for the advertisements therein, and, in fact, ran the whole affair solus’ (Observer, 10 July 1909:4). Pettit was active in Kāwhia society - he was a member of the Town Board, ran a land agency, acted as secretary for a number of local societies and organised social events. After five years as editor of the Kawhia Settler, Pettit sold the newspaper and left for Australia.

 The new owner was Edward Henry Schnackenberg, whose father had been a missionary at Kāwhia in the mid-19th century. Not long after starting at the Settler, Schnackenberg introduced a column in te reo Māori, Nga Takiwa Maori.

 In 1934 Schnackenberg employed Winton Keay, of the Te Aroha News, to manage the Kawhia Settler. The last issue of the newspaper was published in April 1936. Keay went on to become editor of the short-lived Southern Cross before taking up a position at the Dominion in the early 1950s. Schnackenberg also wrote about the history of Kāwhia, including the small book, The pohutukawas of Kawhia: tales, traditions & legends relating to Kāwhia's famous Christmas trees, published in 1935.