New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review

First published on 2 August 1890 as the Sporting Review, the original aim of the publication was to provide reliable information about horse racing and other sporting events from the best possible local sources. While its focus was for the most part on sport, it also covered local agricultural and pastoral (A&P) shows, theatre performances, concerts, and other events and material of public interest. When films began to become popular in New Zealand, the Review started to cover the motion picture industry.

The Sporting Review was founded in 1890 by Harry H Hayr after he had purchased the printing press of Cecil Gardner and Company. Hayr was a ‘prominent man in racing circles’ (Otago Witness, 14 August 1890: 25) and a founding member of the Avondale Jockey Club.

In October of 1894 Hayr sold the Sporting Review to Observer owners William John Geddis and William Bromfield. However only one issue on October 18 was printed under this ownership before being taken over by well-known printer and publisher Arthur Cleave. The Sporting Review commented that ‘it is not often that three successive issues of a newspaper are printed in totally different offices, but that has been the experience of this journal during the past twenty-one days’ (Sporting Review, 25 October 1894: 4).

Cleave originally renamed the journal the Sporting Review and Weekly Standard and then later changed it to the Sporting Review and Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette. The Review went through several further title changes over the years, eventually settling on the New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review in 1899. Along the way it incorporated other titles owned by Cleave such as New Zealand Town & Country Life and NZ Home Pictorial and Motion Picture Magazine.

The title was not without its controversy. During the period of the publication Cleave was charged and fined several times for breaching the Gaming Act in relation to advertising of bookmakers and betting related services.

However, it was also praised for its coverage of the South African (Boer) War and World War I, making an arrangement with British war artist and special correspondent Frederic Villiers to publish his artwork and letters, and frequently publishing pictorial features on the First World War.

After Cleave’s death in 1933, the Review continued to be printed, published, and edited by his sons Arthur Leslie Cleave and Ernest Cleave, until the latter’s death in February 1935. In March 1936 after the removal of Arthur Cleave and Co. from the companies register, the New Zealand Sporting and Dramatic Review Company Ltd acquired the title along with the New Zealand Motor Journal. This company was voluntarily liquidated in September 1936.

In August 1936 the Review was taken over by journalist Timothy Stack Hickey, who had acquired the interests of the New Zealand Sporting and Dramatic Review Co. Ltd in partnership with Frank Stanbury Procter. Hickey had previously edited the Opunake Times and since moving to Auckland’s North Shore had been involved with several local newspapers, including The Bridge (1930) and the North Shore News (1931).

In April 1942, due to a shortage of newsprint during World War II, the New Zealand Sporting and Dramatic Review suspended printing for the duration of the War. While it pledged in an announcement published on 15 April 1942 that they would be back, this does not appear to have been the case. Hickey joined the staff of the Te Awamutu Courier the following year.