Geelong Advertiser - History

History

The Geelong Advertiser was initially edited by James Harrison, a Scots emigrant, who had arrived in Sydney in 1837 to set up a printing press for the English company Tegg & Co.

Moving to Melbourne in 1839 he found employment with John Pascoe Fawkner as a compositor and later editor on Fawkner's Port Phillip Patriot. When Fawkner acquired a new press Harrison offered him 30 pounds for the original old press to start Geelong's first newspaper. The first weekly edition of the Geelong Advertiser appeared on Saturday 21 November 1840: edited by 'James Harrison and printed and published for John Pascoe Fawkner (sole proprietor) by William Watkins...'.

Its first editorial offered the following doggerel:

When first that mighty shout was heard.
Truth rose in radiant light ensphered.

By November 1842 Harrison became sole owner. For the first seven years the paper was printed in demi-folio size before changing to broadsheet. In 1858 the newspaper retired the original wooden press and adopted new typography and was printed by mechanised steam printing.

The newspaper did not feature actual news on the front page until 21 June 1924, coinciding with the inauguration of a new printing press. Before this time the front page was filled with classified advertisements. Trials of a tabloid size paper were trialled during 2000, when a Sunday edition was printed for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. The large broadsheet paper size was used until 2001, when the newspaper changed to the tabloid size which has been used since.