Woodville Examiner

Alexander McMinn began the Woodville Examiner in early October 1883. The Irish-born McMinn was an experienced journalist, having come to New Zealand, one of the country’s first war correspondents, to report on the Land Wars for a London newspaper. After editing the Rangitikei Advocate for several years, he launched the morning Manawatu Daily Standard, Rangitikei Advertiser, and West Coast Gazette in Palmerston North in November 1880.

Ever the optimist, McMinn then set to work on an ambitious plan for a regional chain of newspapers, the first being the twice-weekly Woodville Examiner, Waipawa Advertiser and East Coast Gazette. There was some suspicion in Woodville about the new paper as it was presumed it would be published in Palmerston North and not promote Woodville’s interests. In fact, the paper was printed in Woodville and McMinn made something of this in his Manawatu Standard. ‘On Wednesday the first printing press that has ever been taken through the Manawatu Gorge will be despatched to its future destination - Woodville - for the use of the Woodville Examiner.’

After some energetic canvassing, there was a more positive attitude to the new paper. The Woodville correspondent of the Waipawa Mail wrote: ‘Whatever is to keep the paper going remains a mystery, as the district can hardly furnish a paragraph once a month these quiet times. But it is a noticeable fact that those who at first ran down the affair, and everything and everyone connected with it, have now apparently thought fit to give it their countenance and support.’

It was, though, an immense physical battle for McMinn to produce the Woodville paper. Twice a week he would set out late at night on horseback with columns of type, navigating the rough, unlit Manawatu Gorge road. When he arrived in Woodville in the early hours of the morning he immediately began setting up the paper, and the next night made the difficult return trip to Palmerston North. Although Alexander McMinn was an impressive figure of a man - well over six feet tall and weighing eighteen stone - the repeated effort was too much, particularly after a move to tri-weekly publication in 1880 and the Woodville paper was sold after two years, in 1885.

The Examiner subsequently had several owners, and was a daily from October 1891 to early January 1893 when it reverted to three days a week. John Grant, from the Bruce Herald, owned the paper for a number of years from 1900. After his death in 1916, his daughter Mabel became manager and editor. At the time she was engaged to a Woodville farmer, but remained single to give her full attention to the paper. In 1928 she sold the paper to A H Vile, Sonja Davies’ grandfather. The paper closed in 1938.