One of the more interesting professional groups to have operated in this area was the Wellington District Press Association, which was active from about 1900 until the 1950s.
Most, if not all, of the editors of the weekly papers in Wellington County were members, and the geographic bounds of the group extended beyond Wellington to include portions of Waterloo, Grey, Dufferin and Halton counties.
The association was particularly active in the 1920s and 1930s. Motor cars and improved roads permitted the members to meet several times per year, and one member would act as the host, making arrangements in his town to entertain fellow editors and to discuss common problems.
In April of 1924 the group met at Elora, for a session organized by Dick Mills of the Elora Express. It was something of a swan song for Mills, who was in the process of selling the Elora Express, and he put together a memorable session for the group.
The morning and afternoon sessions took place in the second floor meeting room at the old Elora town hall.
Mills arranged with Reeve Udney Richardson to get the room free of rent, arguing that the meeting would generate favourable publicity for Elora. Lunch would be served at the Iroquois Hotel dining room across the street.
It was a time of change and turmoil for the newspaper industry. Every paper was under financial strain, as costs exceeded the ability of papers to generate more revenue.
The Harriston Tribune and the Mount Forest Representative had recently succumbed, but the chief topic of conversation as the meeting got under way was the end of the daily Guelph Herald.
That left no place in Wellington with more than one newspaper. The editors discussed the dire situation of both the Palmerston Spectator and the Arthur Enterprise News, though the editors from those papers were not present.
Despite the cost squeezes, all the attendees agreed it would be unwise to raise either their advertising rates or their subscription prices. The editors believed that either course would result in still further problems for them.
In the business portion of the meeting, the treasurer reported a modest credit balance. The old executive, consisting of president J.C. Templin of Fergus, A.H. Gardiner of Harriston, and A.W. Wright of Mount Forest, accepted nomination for another year.
The editors were happy to dispose of official business as quickly as possible in order to devote some time to a general discussion of their industry, and especially local rumours and gossip. By then it was time for lunch.
Reeve Richardson joined the group at the Iroquois dining room, and offered a few welcoming remarks, and ended by extending the freedom of the village to the newspaper men. Several replied briefly, but with wit and charm.
After their ample meal the editors strode up Geddes Street, admiring the recently-laid concrete roadway that was the pride of Elora, though financed by the county. Their destination was the residence of Elora historian John Connon, who had gone out of his way to assemble displays from his vast collection of papers and artifacts.
On a challenge from his old teacher, David Boyle, Connon had taken up the mantle of Elora’s historian in the 1890s. At that time he had done much collecting and writing, culminating in a series of articles published in 1906.
His intention at that time was to collect the columns into a book, and the pages had even been printed for it. After the death of his mother, though, Connon had lost interest in the project. Now, in the 1920s, his interest had returned.
Connon talked to the editors for over an hour. He had carefully prepared his talk and carefully selected his illustrations. Of particular interest to the editors was an original document from 1852, establishing the Elora Backwoodsman, the first paper north of Guelph.
Back at the town hall, the editors discussed other matters of the day.
Ontario was then considering the modification of temperance legislation. All the editors believed the move to bring back liquor, no matter how tightly controlled, would be a mistake.
C.S. Bean, publisher of the Waterloo Chronicle, brought greetings from his county. He offered to host the next meeting of the group.
Several of the veterans present spoke of the remarkable changes in the newspaper business over the previous two decades. Editor Claridge, with 21 years at the Shelburne Economist, lead off the discussion, and J.R. Aitchison of the Clifford Express offered further remarks. H.P. Moore, who had been editor of the Acton Free Press before his appointment as a police magistrate, gave some of his early memories, and then compared his attitudes to the press as an editor and then judge.
The editors went home pleased with both the meeting and with the reception they received at Elora. The following week most published accounts of the meeting and their impressions of the City of the Rocks.
The Acton Free Press noted that the grandson of Roswell Matthews, the first European at Elora, was the long-serving postmaster of Acton. Most of the remarks in that paper were devoted to John Connon’s talk.
“Elora is fortunate in the possession of a historian so interested, accurate and capable as Mr. Connon,” noted the editor.
Others were equally impressed with Connon’s presentation. He “filled the visiting brethren to overflowing with his historical data,” stated the Shelburne Free Press. Those sentiments were repeated by the papers in-town rival, the Shelburne Economist.
The Grand Valley Star was happy to note that Connon had included material from the north of the county in his talk.
Taking particular delight in Connon’s presentation were two historians among the editors. A.W. Wright of Mount Forest was himself a published historian, and Hugh Templin of the Fergus News Record had a degree in history from the University of Toronto, and was, thanks to the influence of Connon, becoming immersed in the history of his own town.
In the coming years he would pester Connon to finish his book, and would then undertake the printing and publication of the book in 1930.
The Clifford Express proposed that Connon be invited to give a talk at the village, for the benefit of the local population. He showed the editors a copy of the first map of the place, then called “Minto Village.”
As well, Connon displayed a number of possessions and papers of Rev. John Smithurst, who was one of the pioneer settlers of Minto Township. Many of the items he displayed that day are now lost to historians and to the public record.
The Wellington District Press Association continued to meet through the 1930s and 1940s. The pioneering generation of journalists eventually gave way to newcomers.
Hugh Templin of Fergus replaced his father as a spark plug of the organization, and youngsters such as Art Carr of Palmerston and Kay Marston of Elora injected new life into the activities and discussions.
By 1960, though, the great days of local journalism were over.
The ranks of the papers thinned slowly over time, and the field no longer attracted people of the stature who led the weekly press in the early 20th century.
Reading accounts of those old meetings gives us a glimpse into the time when local papers were vital to their communities, both to readers and advertisers.
And perhaps more important, the editors who ran those papers took very seriously their roles as leaders and spokesmen for their communities.