Editor's note: 'Fully sensible of the many obligations I owe to my Friends and the Public, for the flattering manner in which the announcement of the arrival of a new Press was received ; and with every acknowledgment for the kind assurances of support and patronage which have been voluntarily proffered, I again commence my labours in a cause (the true interests of the Colony) which it shall be my constant and unremitting study to advance. ... I have no desire to revive the unpleasant recollections connected with the discontinuance of my former Publication, and the establishment by Capt. Graham of a weekly Paper under the title of The Western Australian. The circumstances I conceive are generally known in the Colony ; and to those abroad the minute details of private differences, and personal reflections, can have no interest ; I therefore pass over the occurrence with merely this notice, that it is a source of satisfaction to myself, that the tone and sentiments of The Western Australian although the title closely resembled mine, would never lead it to be mistaken for the Western Australian Journal.'
Charles Macfaull, 'To the Public', The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, vol. 1 no. 1 (5 January 1833): 2
Throughout 1838 the newspaper occasionally published selected pars from overseas sources. Pars were sometimes published with a source attribution. The editor's actual source for the pars is not always clear. The attributed international sources for pars in the Perth Gazette are:
'American Papers’
Baltimore Gazette
The Bar
Coleridge’s Table Talk
Liverpool Mercury
Peoria Register and North Western Gazetteer
Fremantle Observer, Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal
Charles Macfaull
(editor),
1831
Fremantle
:
W. K. Shenton and Co.
,
1831
Z1633929
1831
newspaper
Printed on letter paper on a hand-printing press by Charles Macfaull and W. K. Shenton. The first printed newspaper published in Western Australia.
J. S. Battye in Western Australia: A History from its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth (1924) describes the newspaper. 'The press was erected in the shed in which the first bushel of wheat grown in the colony was ground. Thus from the one building there issued food both for mind and body. Want of news caused the publishers to fall back on contributions, some of which may be described as early nineteenth-century yellow-press efforts, and which resulted in a dissolution of partnership. The paper was carried on by Mr. Macfaull, who was compelled, in order to secure freedom from molestation, to remove the press to Hamilton Hill, some three miles out in the bush. The newspaper lasted only about twelve months, the returns not being sufficient to pay the rent of the press.'
John Alexander Ferguson in his description of the newspaper in Bibliography of Australia : Volume II : 1831-1838 (1945): 8-9, no. 1428, quotes an article by 'Pen' published in the Western Mail, Centenary Number (1929): 66 describing the newspaper: 'In a Fremantle shed owned by Colonel Latour it was issued from the colony's first printing-press, which was brought to Fremantle from Launceston by a Mr [John] Weavell. In one part of the shed wheat grown by Mr W. L. Brockman was ground; in another part the joint newspaper proprietors, Messrs Charles Macfaull and W. K. Shenton, laboured with the press which they hired for two guineas a week.
'After the third issue the partnership was dissolved and Mr Macfaull took the press to Hamilton Hill, nearer Perth, ... but the press was soon seized for non-payment of hire and the Observer died. '
O. K. Battye in his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Edmund Stirling includes Stirling as one of the producers of the paper along with Shenton and Macfaull. O. K. Battye describes the press as a '... tiny Ruthven Press, now in the Fremantle Museum.' A. C. Frost in 'Early Western Australian Newspapers' mentions that the Ruthven Press had been '...made in England about 1800 and had been taken to Port Phillip Bay [Victoria] by Captain David Collins to print orders for the convict establishment [and from there] to Port Arthur, Tasmania .. .It was used to print the first newspapers in Hobart [Van Diemen's Land]. The machine was not capable of taking a sheet much more than 10" x 5" and its printing rate was only fifty copies per hour.' The press was leased to Shenton, Macfaull and (possibly) Stirling for two pounds per week.
Sources: J. S. Battye, Western Australia: A History from its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth (1924); John Alexander Ferguson, Bibliography of Australia : Volume II : 1831-1838 (1945); O. K. Battye, 'Stirling, Edmund (1815–1897)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stirling-edmund-4648/text7673, accessed 27 May 2013; A. C. Frost, 'Early Western Australian Newspapers', Early Days, vol. 9, part 1 (1983): 78-79
The Perth Gazette, and Independent Journal of Politics and News
Arthur Shenton
(editor),
1848
Perth
:
Arthur Shenton
,
1848-1864
Z1523123
1848
newspaper
(12 issues)
New series, vol. 1 no. 1 (5 January 1833) - vol. 14 no. 726 (25 December 1846)
New series, vol. 1 no. 1 (2 January 1847) - no. 52 (26 December 1847)
'Terms of Subscription. l0s. 6d. per Quarter, if paid in advance, or 12s. if paid at the end of the Quarter. Single number. One Shilling. Terms of Advertisements :-For 8 lines, 3s. 6d. and 3d. per line above this number.' from 14 March 1840 the subscription was reduced to 10s a quarter, 1s. an issue. The terms for advertisements remained the same.
An advertisement to subscibers, 7 November 1846, announced 'The Proprietor of this Journal, begs to notify to his Subscribers and the Public, that from the first of July, the Quarterly charge will be Six Shillings, to be paid in advance. - Single number Sixpence'
With the first issue of the new series of 2 January 1846, terms of subscription were advertised as: 'Advertisements - 3s. 6d. for 8 lines, 3d. per line for all above that number. Subscription - 6s. per Quarter, to be paid in advance. Single Number 6d.'
No issues were published between 15 December 1838 and 5 January 1839. The editor apologised for the disruption in the 5 January 1839 issue: 'We regret extremely that we are under the necessity of offering an apology to the public for a temporary cessation of this journal, owing to an accident which occurred to our press. The difficulty which is felt in the colony of remedying such casualties will, we hope, be received as a sufficient excuse for the non-appearance of our last number.'
Although two issues (22 and 29 December, 1838) are presumed to be missing, the numbering and Macfaull's apology indicates that there is only one missing issue. The 15 December 1838 issue is no. 311 and the 5 January 1839 issue continues as no. 313.
'Moore's account of his trip with Lennard and Bull ... has been reproduced in Joanne Shoobert, Western Australian Explorations, pp. 421-7. Accompanied by Gear and Beguin, they travelled north to the Gingin-South Bindoon area [of Southwest Western Australia].'
Source: J. M. R. Cameron, The Millendon Memoirs (2006): 376
