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“Museum Gets 19th Century Printing Press ‘For A Smile’"

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Description: These images were taken for the November 19th, 1978 edition of the Tribune weekly newspaper, the first of which was published with the caption: “Mark Paterson, a Massey student who's working at the museum for his second end-of-year holidays, studies the mechanics of the old Wharfedale press. It's a far cry from the work he's undertaking at Massey - there he's studying for a degree in computer sciences. He's working at the museum in a community service programme.”

An excerpt from the read: “A rare printing press, one of only three in New Zealand, has just been delivered to the Manawatu Museum. The press, complete with its gelatine and treacle rollers, was made about 1870. It was still in use until four weeks ago, the museum's director, Mrs Mina McKenzie, told the "Tribune". The Wharfedale rotary printing press was first used in England - when it was driven by water power. It was brought to New Zealand about 1886, she said, and was in continuous use, in Wanganui, until it was donated to the Manawatu Museum.

Mrs McKenzie said the Wanganui firm which used the press, Hanton and Anderson Printing Company, was replacing the old machine with more modern equipment. A Palmerston North engineer from A. M. Satterthwaite and Company Limited, who was working on the dismantling, thought the Manawatu Museum might be interested in obtaining it. The engineer, John Bradley, did some checking, and found that the museum would welcome the old press with open arms.

Boys from the Wanganui periodic detention centre helped dismantle the press, Highways Transport provided free transportation for the weighty machinery on one of its trucks, and A. C. Flowers provided a forklift in Palmerston North to help unload it. With the donation of the press in the first place, that meant that five separate organisations had combined to give the press to the museum "for a smile", Mrs McKenzie said.”

These images form part of the Manawatū Evening Standard Negative Collection. Unfortunately, only negatives between April and December 1978 are held.