Wanganui Chronicle

The Wanganui Chronicle is New Zealand's oldest newspaper. Based in Whanganui, it celebrated 160 years of publishing in September 2016.

Local resident Henry Stokes first proposed the paper for Petre, as the town was then called, but initial publication was held back by lack of equipment. As no printing press was available, Stokes approached the technical master at Wanganui Collegiate School, Rev. Charles Nicholls, and together they constructed a maire wood and iron makeshift printing press, on which, with the help of the staff and pupils of the school, the first edition of the Chronicle was printed on 18 September 1856.

The motto of the paper, printed at the top of the editorial column, was "Verite Sans Peur," French for "Truth without Fear."

Initially the paper was sold fortnightly, at a price of six pence. In 1866 the Chronicle went tri-weekly, and in 1871 began publishing daily and has done so since. The paper was owned and edited by Gilbert Carson from 1875 onwards.^[2] In the 1880s Carson's sister Margaret Bullock worked as a reporter and assistant editor for the paper, and, along with Laura Jane Suisted, was one of the first female parliamentary correspondents in New Zealand.^[3]

The Chronicle's rival from the 1860s onward was the Evening Herald (later the Wanganui Herald), founded by John Ballance. The two daily papers merged in the 1970s, and in 1986 the Herald became a free weekly, later renamed the Wanganui Midweek.^[2] The Chronicle is currently Whanganui's only daily newspaper.

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