Waipa Post

Te Awamutu’s first newpaper was Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke, written in te reo Māori. This paper was edited by John Gorst, and published as a government attempt to counteract the influence of the Māori King’s newspaper, Te Hokioi. Only 5 issues were ever published during February and March 1863.

The second attempt at a local newspaper was the Te Awamutu Chronicle and Waipa Observer, which came out on 24 May 1880. It appears that only this one issue of the Chronicle was ever published, and it may have been an elaborate spoof, rather than a serious attempt to start a newspaper.

The third attempt was much more successful. The Waipa Post was started in Te Awamutu by Arthur George Warburton (c.1888-1956) and his first issue appeared on 18 April 1911. Warburton had previously worked on the New Zealand Herald and other provincial newspapers before moving to Te Awamutu in 1908.

The newspaper grew from a four page bi-weekly to a tri-weekly in 1919. In 1923 Arthur Reese (c.1886-1961) was appointed as editor and he remained with the newspaper until 1940. A fire in 1927 completely gutted part of the Post’s building, and ruined two linotype machines, the press and much of the other equipment. The newspaper continued to be printed, although in a smaller format, while the office was rebuilt and new machinery acquired.

In 1936, to mark 25 years of publishing, the newspaper was renamed Te Awamutu Courier, with the first issue under its new masthead coming out on 17 April 1936. The following year, Arthur’s son George (1920-2009) began his apprenticeship with the Courier.

When Arthur died in 1956, George took over the management of the newspaper. He was followed by his son, John, who started with the Courier in 1966, and succeeded his father as manager in 1986. John remained as manager after the newspaper was purchased by Wilson and Horton (later known as APN, and then as NZME) in 1992. He retired in 2008, ending 97 years of his family’s association with the newspaper.

In 2018 a new free weekly newspaper, also named the Waipa Post and using the masthead of its predecessor, was put out by NZME. The new Waipa Post came out on a Tuesday, while the Te Awamutu Courier continued to be published every Thursday.