Watkin Wynne migrated to Victoria in 1852 ‘with his widowed mother and three sisters. He attended the Free Church School at Geelong, was apprenticed to a printer with the Ballarat Times until 1861, worked as a journeyman on several regional papers and, after studying shorthand, joined the Ballarat Evening Post as a reporter.’
Wynne continued his newspaper career in Victoria and in New South Wales. In 1876 he became sub-editor of the Melbourne Daily Telegraph and, in 1879, took up the same role in Sydney when he joined a syndicate to found the Sydney Daily Telegraph.
According to Nicholas Brown, Wynne was described as 'original, courageous, swift to decide and to act [and] unshackled by a single convention'. He was also 'mechanically minded and pioneered new technical processes in Australia ... Wynne's management was characterized by shrewd business sense and strict discipline. Active in arbitration proceedings, he opposed closed-shop unionism, yet scrupulously observed prescribed conditions; he tried, as well, to modernize office design.'
Source: Brown, Nicholas. ‘Watkin Wynne (1844-1921).’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
Sighted: 11 November 2013
