AustLit

Printed on letter paper on a hand-printing press by Charles Macfaull and W. K. Shenton. The first printed newspaper published in Western Australia.

J. S. Battye in Western Australia: A History from its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth (1924) describes the newspaper. 'The press was erected in the shed in which the first bushel of wheat grown in the colony was ground. Thus from the one building there issued food both for mind and body. Want of news caused the publishers to fall back on contributions, some of which may be described as early nineteenth-century yellow-press efforts, and which resulted in a dissolution of partnership. The paper was carried on by Mr. Macfaull, who was compelled, in order to secure freedom from molestation, to remove the press to Hamilton Hill, some three miles out in the bush. The newspaper lasted only about twelve months, the returns not being sufficient to pay the rent of the press.'

John Alexander Ferguson in his description of the newspaper in Bibliography of Australia : Volume II : 1831-1838 (1945): 8-9, no. 1428, quotes an article by 'Pen' published in the Western Mail, Centenary Number (1929): 66 describing the newspaper: 'In a Fremantle shed owned by Colonel Latour it was issued from the colony's first printing-press, which was brought to Fremantle from Launceston by a Mr [John] Weavell. In one part of the shed wheat grown by Mr W. L. Brockman was ground; in another part the joint newspaper proprietors, Messrs Charles Macfaull and W. K. Shenton, laboured with the press which they hired for two guineas a week.

'After the third issue the partnership was dissolved and Mr Macfaull took the press to Hamilton Hill, nearer Perth, ... but the press was soon seized for non-payment of hire and the Observer died. '

O. K. Battye in his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Edmund Stirling includes Stirling as one of the producers of the paper along with Shenton and Macfaull. O. K. Battye describes the press as a '... tiny Ruthven Press, now in the Fremantle Museum.' A. C. Frost in 'Early Western Australian Newspapers' mentions that the Ruthven Press had been '...made in England about 1800 and had been taken to Port Phillip Bay [Victoria] by Captain David Collins to print orders for the convict establishment [and from there] to Port Arthur, Tasmania .. .It was used to print the first newspapers in Hobart [Van Diemen's Land]. The machine was not capable of taking a sheet much more than 10" x 5" and its printing rate was only fifty copies per hour.' The press was leased to Shenton, Macfaull and (possibly) Stirling for two pounds per week.

Sources: J. S. Battye, Western Australia: A History from its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth (1924); John Alexander Ferguson, Bibliography of Australia : Volume II : 1831-1838 (1945); O. K. Battye, 'Stirling, Edmund (1815–1897)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stirling-edmund-4648/text7673, accessed 27 May 2013; A. C. Frost, 'Early Western Australian Newspapers', Early Days, vol. 9, part 1 (1983): 78-79