Thomas Mitchell Shakespeare was apprenticed to the Forbes and Parkes Gazette at the age of fourteen. By 1894, he was launching out on his own, beginning the Lachlander at Condobolin and, later (1902), acquiring the Grafton Argus.
Shakespeare ‘was a founding member of the New South Wales Country Press Association (1900) and in 1903 was appointed secretary of the Country Press Co-operative Co., representing the business interests of country newspapers’. He went on to have a significant political career, being a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and ‘a foundation member (1919) of the Federal Capital Territory Representation League’.
In 1925, Shakespeare ‘launched a family company, Federal Capital Press of Australia Ltd, to start a newspaper. The first number of the Canberra Times appeared on 3 September 1926 and it became a daily on 20 February 1928.
Source: Gibbney, H. J. 'Shakespeare, Thomas Mitchell (1873–1938).', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
Sighted: 13/11/2013
