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'Letterpress printer James Shanley is one of the lesser-known figures in the history of printing and publishing in Port Phillip (now Victoria), Australia. Although from this distance a minor personage in the publishing history of Victoria, Shanley was the instigator of a number of major initiatives. Firstly, he was printer and publisher of one of Melbourne’s earliest newspapers, the Weekly Free Press and Port Phillip Advertiser of 1841. Secondly, he was the printer and publisher of the first comprehensive Melbourne trade and professional directory, the Melbourne Commercial Directory of 1853. This directory was considered the foundation volume of the renowned, multi-decade Sands and McDougall directory series. Thirdly, Shanley was the first official printer to the Catholic, mostly Irish population of Port Phillip; a group that in both ethnic and denominational terms constituted one-third of the population. He published the first Catholic newspaper and Catholic directory for Victoria. Finally, Shanley was considered by his peers to be one of the finest job printers in the colony, a position reflected by the Australasian Typographical Journal in 1898, when looking back on the key printers and publishers in Victoria’s early publishing history.2 For these reasons, Shanley’s life and position in the history of printing and publishing in Victoria warrants critical assessment.' (Introduction)
