The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
For the past two weeks this column has surveyed the history of newspapers in Wellington County.
When I first discussed this subject with the publisher, I planned a single column, providing a quick overview. It has since stretched to three columns, totaling some 5,000 words, and perhaps testing the patience of some readers.
This week I conclude with a look at the Fergus and Elora papers during the liveliest decades of journalism, followed by some general observations.
At Fergus, the News Record firmly established itself by 1870. John Craig had taken the helm in 1868, and held it for about 30 years; first with his brother Robert, then alone, and finally with his son James. Few newcomers appeared to challenge him.
Jabez Coram, was one. He published the Fergus Advocate beginning in 1885, but later moved the operation to Drayton, where he filled the void created by the demise of the Drayton New Era. Longest lived of the rivals was the Fergus Canadian, founded in 1899. It twice underwent ownership changes in its first three years. Richard Mills emerged in 1902 as the proprietor. He abandoned the venture when he purchased the Elora Express in 1903.
After the Craig era, the Fergus News Record came into the possession of J.C. Templin, and later his son Hugh, whose place as the most distinguished of Wellington’s newspapermen is undisputed. A rival paper, the Fergus Press, appeared in 1922, but it did not worry the Templins for long. It failed after a few months.
The column two weeks ago outlined the early history of Elora’s first two papers, The Backwoodsman and the Observer. For most of its history Elora was a one-paper town, but for a nine year period beginning in 1868, Elora ranked as the liveliest newspaper town in the county.
The fun began in 1868, when Bill Pemberton set up a paper he called The North Wellington Times. Initially the paper emanated from Salem. In 1869 Bill Culloden purchased the paper and moved the office to what was then the centre of political intrigue: downtown Elora.
Politically, Culloden claimed to follow a conservative line, but more often than not supported moderate Liberals. Because of his independence, neither political party trusted him.
Meanwhile, there were changes at the well established Elora Observer. John Smith, who had founded the Guelph Advertiser in 1845, had been in Oil Springs running a paper called The Chronicle. Dissatisfied with prospects there, he moved this paper back to Guelph in December 1867. A few months later he purchased an interest in the Observer, at that time published by J.M. Shaw.
A partnership arrangement between Smith and Shaw quickly fell apart. By August 1868 Smith was in control of the Elora Observer and had merged the Guelph Chronicle into it.
Much remains murky concerning the ownership and control of the Elora papers of this period. Several historians have detected the hand of Col. Charles Clarke, the Elora MPP and backroom political operator, attempting to manipulate the various papers and editors.
One way or another, Shaw was soon back in the newspaper business. Perhaps bankrolled by Charles Clarke, the first issue of Elora’s third paper rolled off the press in December 1868. Shaw called it the Lightning Express. Shaw and the new paper proved to be unreliable allies for Clarke and his vehement liberal ideals. Presumably, Clarke withdrew his support, and the paper suspended publication after 14 months.
A short time later, in February 1871, the paper reappeared, issuing from Fergus. It was now nominally a conservative paper, called simply the Fergus Express. Bill Pemberton, formerly of the Woodstock Sentinel, was editor. J.M. Shaw was on the staff, but back at his original job, setting type. Shaw’s tenure in the back shop was short. Nine months later he was editor.
Yet another paper, the Elora News, appeared in 1872. Publisher was Thomas Frankland, a brother-in-law of Elora’s famous school principal David Boyle.
About a year later, lawyer George Drew hired the youthful Acton Burrows to establish yet another paper, the Elora Standard. Though Elora already had three papers (four if the Fergus Express is included), none was prepared to endorse Drew’s political ambitions, and none was consistently supported the Conservative party.
For a few months it appeared that newspaper publishing had become a major industry in Elora. The Observer, Times, News, and Standard vied with one another for the loyalty of readers, and tried to enlarge the Elora sphere of influence into the north of the county. Politics had much to do with this. All the papers had some connection with a candidate or potential candidate for provincial or federal office.
Obviously, in a town of 1,600 people, there was not sufficient business for this many newspapers. Bill Culloden was first to throw in the towel. He shut down the North Wellington Times in November 1873, moving on to become editor of the Goderich Star.
The Standard was next to go, after Drew pulled out his financial support in June 1874. There was an unsuccessful attempt to revive the paper a few months later. In 1875 the equipment went to the Arthur Enterprise, which had been burned out.
Meanwhile, Tom Frankland sold the News to Joseph Townsend, a hunchbacked collector of geological specimens, who would deliver a temperance harangue at the drop of a hat. Townsend soon formed a partnership with J.M. Shaw of the Fergus Express, and the two papers were subsequently combined under the old title of the Elora Lightning Express. This paper became simply The Express in 1881, and survived until the merger with the Fergus News Record in 1972.
The old Observer, which had been the dominant paper in Elora, and indeed in much of north Wellington, closed down in 1877, returning Elora to the status of a one-paper town.
A.W. Wright, the Mount Forest editor, wrote in 1933 that no one in Wellington County became wealthy from publishing a newspaper. His assessment was probably correct.
Newspaper revenue consists of advertising revenue and subscriptions. Generating a steady flow of advertising has always been a challenge for newspapers – in the 19th century as much as today. Some businesses saw no benefit from advertising, and others ranked the advertising account very low when bills were paid.
Overdue subscriptions plagued 19th century papers. Publishers removed names with great reluctance. They wanted to keep their circulation high, and they suspected that money would be even harder to collect if the subscriber was cut off. When newspapers changed hands, there invariably was a drawer full of overdue, uncollected accounts to deal with.
Despite the poor net income, newspaper publishing attracted new entrants steadily. Most publishers and editors began as apprentice type setters and pressman. The old-fashioned editor could handle, and often did, every job in the shop. Apprentice typesetters had to have a reasonable education, and particularly a good command of English. Their duties included the translation of the pencilled scribblings of their editors into lucid prose. The typical apprentice dreamed of eventually owning his own newspaper. Many did, for at least part of their career.
Getting started in the days before mechanization was not expensive. A newspaper could be started for about $1,000 in the 1870s (perhaps $75,000 in today’s money), and credit was usually available. By shopping carefully for second hand equipment, the start-up cost could be much less.
While a majority of editors and publishers advanced from apprentices, others came from outside the publishing field. A number were former teachers and some, like John Smith of the Elora Observer, had varied careers in other businesses, often concurrently with their newspaper endeavours.
Until the conversion of weekly newspapers to offset printing in the 1960s, commercial job printing provided a major source of revenue to weekly newspapers. Most would have expired without this income.
This was particularly the case after the First World War, when wage increases outstripped rises in income, and mechanization became necessary. Modern typesetting machinery and newer presses raised the cost of a printing shop dramatically from what it had been in the 1870s. The continual demise of newspapers in Wellington attests to the marginal profitability of the industry.
Of the towns in Wellington, only Harriston and Mount Forest were able to support two papers over the long haul, and even there the second papers lasted only until the 1920 era.
Guelph’s second daily, the Herald, perished about the same time, in 1924. With revenue flat and the cost of mechanization so high, economics of the 1920s devastated Wellington’s newspaper industry, long before radio had become an alternate source of information.
Despite the costs, the Guelph Mercury continued its weekly edition through the 1920s. The publisher claimed that it was difficult, because of mail connections, for its daily edition to reach country readers the same day. The daily was printed late in the afternoon. The weekly, printed Friday mornings, reached most readers on Friday night or Saturday morning.
Though unprofitable, the publishers continued to devote resources to it, running news columns from several dozen correspondents, and reprinting important local and national stories from the previous week’s daily editions. Alas, the Weekly Mercury died after a change in ownership in 1929.
Wellington’s newspapers produced an outstanding list of distinguished editors, some, admittedly, verging on the eccentric, who did much for their communities.
Heading the list would be people like Acton Burrows, Rixton Rafter, A.W. Wright, Hugh Templin, Katharine Marston, and Art Carr. There are many others.
All deserve to be remembered with admiration and respect.
*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on Oct. 22, 1999.