The Broadford Courier and Reedy Creek Times started operations on 28 February 1981, in an office located in Hamilton Street. The office was founded by Mr J.M. Harcourt of Bendigo, and was leased to three other people before Wiliam MacDonald purchased the property and business from the widow of Mr J.M. Harcourt in 1904. MacDonald, who had worked at the office as a boy, shortened the name of the newspaper to The Broadford Courier. McDonald continued to run the business, and his son Eric joined the company in subsequent decades. In 1958, Eric MacDonald took over from his father. He managed the newspaper until 1978, the year when The Broadford Courier ceased publication. The Hamilton Street building was closed and its contents were moved to the Historical Precinct in High Street, Broadford, where
it is now a museum.
(Source: Adapted from the poetry anthology From the Broadford Courier: 1891-1978.)
During the colonial wars in New Zealand, Charles Stanton, a British officer, falls in love with Kiora Selby, daughter of a Maori woman and a white settler. Stanton's courtship, however, is disrupted by the machinations of a fellow soldier, himself in love with Kiora, who manipulates Stanton into giving in to his weakness for alcohol.
On Christmas Eve, Sampson the Nugget, guarding the gold-mine until his mates return the next day, is unexpectedly confronted by a strange creature calling itself Grapple, who takes him to the land of Golden Cloud.
Hilton Fernbrook, part-Maori and orphaned heir of Colonel Fernbrook returns from five years abroad to his ancestral home and wealth. His fiancee Lady Blanche Trevor feels he has changed as do the old Maori servants who raised him but his rich hospitality convinces NZ society. He is, in reality, an expert mesmerist and an escaped convict who uses music and the power of his will to overcome the mind of his beautiful Maori ward Te Coro and use her as his visionary oracle. Other characters include the poor but latterly successful writer Alton Lyndhurst; Ralph Warne the banker's son who promoted Alton's work; Blanche's father, a respectable MP.
The melodramatic story of Jocelyn Vanborough, a prison escapee living under an unassumed name in the goldfields of New Zealand, until a chance newspaper paragraph makes others aware of his identity.