View down Lambton Quay its termination with Mulgrave Street, Wellingtons.

Please see Alexander Turnbull Library, Timeframes Conditions of Use for this image.

By the 1920s, Government Printing Office, Wellington was a well-known player and permanent fixture in the Wellington book trade landscape. Its story, ably recounted by W.A. Glue in his centenary history, documents the impact of changing technologies, personnel and equipment. In addition to the bread and butter of official government printing, the Office had an ongoing educational mandate to produce works for New Zealanders which reflected back to them what the government, at least, expected them to see and experience; innumerable textbooks, scientific manuals, monographs, journals, maps, tourist promotion brochures, posters, and more were all part of their wide-ranging brief. The peaks and troughs of their production can also be witnessed by the range of buildings and sites they occupied. This grand piece of Victorian confection was located across from the railway station and included domes, towers, and ornamentation alluding to the history of printing. Later earthquake risk resulted in the demolition of these trademark features and a purpose-built facility on Mulgrave Street, now the home of Archives New Zealand, was opened in 1966. In a number of corporate takeovers and overseas mergers through the 1990s, the Government Printing Office, now a privatised company, is broken up into PrintLink, its commercial printing arm, and a separate provider of the government's legislation and other official documentation.

Further reading:

• W.A. Glue, History of the Government Printing Office. Wellington: Government Print, 1966.