More Info →Pushing out a linotype, big steps since 1903

Machine operators at work in the new typesetting ‘bay’. Donald Leslie Driver is standing (right). This image was taken (but not used) for a story that ran in The Manawatu Evening Standard on 27th January 1967. On June 30, 1903, when Messrs. H.N. Nash and J. Coombe bought the paper from Messrs. F. and D. Pirani, the Manawatu Standard and Pohangina Gazette had a circulation of 3,000 and a staff of 18. Today the circulation is about 22,000, and the Waikato Times and Southland Times just "pip" the Standard from being the largest provincial newspaper in New Zealand. There are over 300 employees and the payroll is more than £5000 a week.
[The full article can be read on the newspaper microfilm held at the City Library.]