Poverty Bay Standard

The Poverty Bay Standard was the first newspaper to be published in Gisborne. It was founded by Henry Edwin Webb (senior) along with the printer Stephen A Parker, and began as a four-page weekly. The first issue came out on 5 October 1872. By the beginning of the next year, the Standard was coming out twice a week.

Successful at first, the Standard struggled after the Poverty Bay Herald started up in competition in 1874. Both newspapers suffered from the 16 November 1877 fire in Gisborne, which burnt down the Standard’s office and plant, as well as damaging parts of the Herald’s office. The Herald was up again within a week, but the Standard was unable to come out for 15 days, and Webb had to begin printing individual pages using a small hand press.

Both papers were also financially hurt by the crash of the City of Glasgow Bank in October 1878. Unlike the Herald, the Standard was forced to close in November the following year and Webb was declared bankrupt. Webb’s new plant was sold the following month and taken to Auckland.

The following year, the Standard was started up again. However, the situation around this is a little unclear. Newspaper reports of the time stated that the plant belonging to the Te Waka Maori newspaper had been purchased by a Webb, variously said to be ‘Mr E.W. Webb’, ‘Mr C. Webb’, ‘Mr E. Webb’, ‘Mr H. E. Webb’, or indeed just ‘Webb’ and that it would be used to resuscitate the Standard. Most reports agreed that the purchase had been made possible by local supporters. It seems most likely that it was the founder Henry Edwin Webb who purchased the Te Waka Maori plant and started his newspaper up again.

However, by June 1881 Webb was struggling financially again. A handbill dated 25 October 1881, which appeared with the Standard, stated that the goodwill and the plant of the Standard had been purchased by Webb and Mogridge. It appears from later bankruptcy reports that this was Henry Edwin Junior (1859-1899) and that he had gone into partnership with printer John Mogridge after his father retired.

Webb Junior and Mogridge ran the newspaper for around 18 months. On 21 April 1883 they printed their last issue of the Standard and filed for bankruptcy on 12 July 1883. By that time the Standard had reappeared again from 7 June, but it was now under the proprietorship of Charles Henry Collins Webb. Despite the surname in common, this Webb was not one of the original founder’s children. Born in Wellington to Annie and Charles Frederick Webb, Collins Webb had previously been employed by the Standard and also, in May 1883, was printing and publishing the te reo Māori newspaper Takitimu.

The Standard finally closed on 25 October 1883 after Collins Webb sold the business to two local businessmen Thomas Porter and Albert Croft. They renamed it the Telephone and the paper continued to be published until December 1884 as a morning daily. One of Croft and Porter’s stated aims was to raise the tone of the newspaper, avoiding ‘the slangy abuse, which has so disfigured Gisborne newspapers…’. Finally, they closed the paper on 30 December 1884, saying that they were forced to close because their advertisers refused to pay them on time.