New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, April 5, 1845

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, April 5, 1845 marks an important moment in the development of the Wellington newspaper press. The Spectator was a thriving business servicing the settlement of a mere two hundred, supported primarily by its jobbing printing and stationery sales. However, in April, after printing a libellous announcment about a quarrel between Samuel Revans and Daniel Riddiford, Edward Roe was moved sideways, the paper transferred to a management committee fronted by William Lyon, and its printing shifted to the office of Revan's original newspaper rival, the New Zealand Colonist. The masthead of this number reveals that change, substituting the former royal crest and shadowed outline bodoni typeface of the "Cook's Strait Guardian" with a crude hand-cut attempt. Robert Stokes took over as publisher of the Spectator, but Roe had the last laugh; he began his own newspaper, the Wellington Independent, just four days later.

Further reading:

• Roderick Cave and Kathleen Coleridge, "For Gospel and Wool trade. Early Printing in New Zealand," Printing History 7:1 (1985).