Described as 'a well-educated, highly strung woman', Annie Christie Massy ran a boarding school in Bowen before pursuing a career as a newspaper proprietor. Based on 'democratic/Labor principles', Massy launched The Bowen Advocate in 1899. In June of the following year, the death of F. Thomas Rayner (q.v.), a pioneer of the Bowen newspaper press, provided Massy with an opportunity to acquire a second paper; the conservative The Port Denison Times and Kennedy District Advertiser which had been founded by Rayner in 1864. With the financial assistance of her brother, Massy purchased the paper and on 1 September 1900 she merged her two acquisitions under the new banner of The Port Denison Times and Bowen Advocate. Unfortunately she was unable to fulfil her aims for the newspaper as she died of dengue fever in February 1901. Following his wife's premature death, John Eyre Massy (q.v.) took over running and editing the paper until 1909.
(Source: Rod Kirkpatrick, Sworn to No Master: A History of the Provincial Press in Queensland to 1930, 1984; Patricia Clarke, Pen Portraits: Women Writers and Journalists in Nineteenth Century Australia, 1988)
