Waikato Argus

The Waikato Argus had an unusual beginning.

From 1875, the Waikato Times had been Hamilton’s sole newspaper, appearing three days a week. The paper struggled for some years before, with increasing indebtedness, it passed into the hands of the Bank of New Zealand, which leased it back to previous proprietor George Edgecumbe. In 1896, during a lengthy depression, the Bank needed to realise its assets and sold the masthead and property to J S Bond, who ran the Waikato Advocate in Cambridge, rather than Edgecumbe.

George Edgecumbe, who had considerable public support, was given a fortnight to give up possession. He acted quickly, finding another building to which he moved an old printing press he had purchased some time before. He then printed the first issue of the Waikato Argus at the Times office in July 1896, before removing files, contracts, subscriber lists - the lifeblood of a newspaper.

Mr Bond was left with the building, membership of the Press Association and some plant. Bond quickly converted the three-morning-a-week Waikato Times into a penny evening daily, with the Waikato Argus beginning and continuing as a tri-weekly morning paper. In 1898, with high public interest following the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, the Argus had no alternative but to also join the Press Association. As it was unable to make suitable telephone arrangements, the Argus changed to evening publication - and Hamilton had two evening papers with virtually identical international news.

According to the 1902 Auckland provincial edition of the Cyclopedia of New Zealand, the Argus’s ‘columns are largely devoted to the interests of the farmers’. It became a daily in 1899.

In 1909, following a fire at the Times, the Argus produced both papers for a period with, as a later report noted, ‘ ... the one being almost an exact duplicate of the other so far as the news columns went, with merely a change of title.’

The first decade of the 20th century was difficult economically for the competing publications - and at the beginning of the First World War a company was formed to buy both papers. In late 1914 the Argus was incorporated into the much older Waikato Times. George Edgecumbe was the new company’s chairman of directors for some years.

The first and only editor of the Waikato Argus was Henry Holloway. An Englishman, he arrived in New Zealand in 1863. He was a miner and served in the Taranaki militia before settling in Wanganui and becoming editor of the Wanganui Herald. He was later on the staff of the Wellington Independent and the Napier Daily Telegraph before becoming the first editor of the Waikato Times. About 20 years later, after a period in Australia, he was again editor of the Waikato Times when George Edgecumbe’s lease was not renewed. He immediately joined the Argus and remained editor until its 1914 amalgamation with the Times.