The Nelson Mail: 160 not out
“We think that this city has arrived at such a stage of prosperity and importance, that only a daily paper can properly express its varied requirements.”
So said the Nelson Evening Mail’s editorial in its first edition published on March 5, 1866. It was carried out into the young settlement, fuelled by the South Island gold rush, by paper boys and riders on horseback.
One hundred and sixty years later, so much has changed but the Mail remains committed to properly expressing the region’s “varied requirements”.
News is an unrelenting business, with little time to look backwards.
But trawling through old editions and photographs, it’s clear that the Mail has been entwined with Nelson’s growth.
In the four-page first edition, the front page was full of advertisements – one shilling for three lines and under – proclaiming the virtues of hotels, watchmakers, bread and steam-biscuit bakers and tweed and doeskin suits.
Inside there was news of runaway sailors, the West Coast gold fields and the “singular coincidence” of an apple tree with nearly ripe fruit that was also in blossom for a second crop. Sadly, there were no photographs.
Proving the adage that if it bleeds, it leads, the sensational trial of the Burgess gang for the Maungatapu murders two months after the Mail’s launch, saw people queuing up for newspapers, giving the fledgling business a big leap in circulation.
In the years since the paper has painted a vibrant snapshot of the events, issues and personalities that have shaped our communities.
Like any industry there have been tremendous challenges. The rise of digital information, social media platforms and now AI have fragmented how people get information, and threaten the credibility of that news.
We can’t turn the clock back and nor would we want to – though the idea of delivery on horseback has a strange appeal. But in an age where it’s getting harder to trust what you read, you can be sure that the Mail remains dedicated to good journalism and being, in the words of its proprietors 160 years ago “a thoroughly independent journal”.
Thanks for continuing to read us.
By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail
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