From Tauranga City Library’s archives
Users of Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online will regularly discover photographs from the Bay of Plenty Times. The library's Heritage and Research team has also collaborated with the National Library of New Zealand to put editions from the very first up until 1949 online via the Papers Past website. Here's a brief history of the paper, including an exciting new development for researchers!
The Bay of Plenty Times was first published on 4 September 1872, making it one of New Zealand’s longest-running provincial newspapers. Its founder and first editor and publisher was W.B. Langbridge, with H.W. Penny also a publisher. Initially issued twice weekly, the paper consisted of four tabloid-sized pages and sold for threepence per issue. Printed on a flat-bed press from premises on The Strand, then Beach Road, it became known locally as the “Tauranga Duster.”
The first of the three long single story structures to the right is the initial Bay of Plenty Times on The Strand in the mid to late 1870s. A portion of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 04-213.
In September 1875 ownership passed to Edward Mortimer Edgecumbe, a prominent Tauranga figure remembered in "Edgecumbe Road". By September 1878 public demand for news led the paper to publish tri-weekly and it was becoming clear that the newspaper was a powerful tool for shaping public opinion . At the start of 1879 control of the paper passed to George Vesey Stewart and A.F. Rathbone, Rathbone serving as editor and manager. Stewart was a central figure in the organised settlement of Katikati and Te Puke, and was destined to become the first Mayor of Tauranga in a few short years (1882). That first month new premises were built in Harington Street on the former Customs House site. Before the end of March, he had became sole proprietor and Rathbone was out, departing for England that May. These early years were marked by repeated disruption: in May 1881 a major fire destroyed much of the northern end of Tauranga, including the Times premises. Publication resumed in short order (7 June 1881), missing just two issues, and rebuilding began immediately. By August 1881 the new, new building was ready for use. Over the next year and a half the paper floundered and in March 1883 it was sold by order of the mortgagee. And who should be waiting in the wings but our newly minted Mayor George Vesey Stewart and the Rev. David Bruce of Auckland for £1000.
Astute and influential, Stewart was well aware that power and media went hand in hand. But now with control well in hand and with a sympathetic business partner, management could pass to the Reverend.
Portrait of George Vesey Stewart (1832–1920), Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 21-1915
The sale was part of a wider pattern of financial instability: over its first 40 years the Times changed ownership many times, including several changes through mortgagee sales. Ownership changed again in November 1887, when Edward Alexander Haggen became proprietor and Walter James Pull was appointed printer. On 16 April 1888 Haggen handed over the Bay of Plenty Times, which was amalgamated with another Tauranga paper owned by barrister and solicitor James Galbraith.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were difficult economic years for many provincial newspapers. Frequent changes of ownership, publication schedules, and printing arrangements were common, including at the Bay of Plenty Times. Despite this instability, the paper issued a Christmas supplement in 1897 that featured one of the earliest uses of photographs in a New Zealand newspaper. Stability began to return in the 1890s under William Elliot and General Arnold Ward, followed by technological upgrades and the construction of new printing premises in Willow Street. Photographic illustration, modern presses, and engine-powered printing kept the paper at the cutting edge in the region.
A major turning point came in 1913 when W.H. Gifford purchased the Bay of Plenty Times. Under the Gifford and Cross families, the paper entered a long period of continuity that lasted for most of the twentieth century. The Bay of Plenty Times Company was formed in 1929, and William Cross played a central role in the paper’s administration for more than sixty years. Circulation and staffing expanded steadily, supported by the growth of Tauranga and the wider Bay of Plenty, especially after Mount Maunganui developed as an export port in the early 1950s. New technologies were introduced, including linotype typesetting, reel-fed presses, rotary presses, and later full computerisation.
Bay of Plenty Times premises on Willow Street before it moved to Durham Street in 1955. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 00-399
A 1976 fire destroyed the newspaper’s own collection of back issues, but copies survived on microfilm kept by the publisher and now held by the Alexander Turnbull Library. A collaboration between The National Library of New Zealand and Te Ao Mārama, Tauranga City Libraries has meant these historic papers are also available on Papers Past up until 1949. But in an exciting update, this collaboration in currently being extended and we can expect to see papers from 1950 to 1963 appearing in the first part of 2027.
Bethlehem School pupils shown around Bay of Plenty Times factory in 1966. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gcc-13613
In 1992 the Gifford and Cross families donated tens of thousands of historic negatives to Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries. Most date from the late 1960s to the late 1970s and are primarily 35mm film, which had replaced earlier 120-format negatives, along with a smaller number of large-format negatives. These have since been digitised and made available through Pae Korokī – Tauranga Archives Online.
That same year, the newspaper was sold to Wilson and Horton. In 1996 Independent Newspapers plc of Dublin acquired a controlling interest in Wilson and Horton, bringing the Bay of Plenty Times into a broader Australasian newspaper group.
From the early 2000s the newspaper faced industry-wide challenges of declining print circulation and advertising revenue. In response, it made significant changes to format and delivery: on 5 February 2011 the first rebranded Saturday edition, Bay of Plenty Times Weekend, was published, and in March 2013 the weekday paper shifted from a traditional broadsheet to a compact format with morning delivery.
A series of images captured by Bay of Plenty Times photographer John Borren during the Rena Disaster, 2011. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo NZME-CD810_181111jb08
In 2014 APN News & Media’s New Zealand operations were restructured into New Zealand Media and Entertainment, or NZME, a merged national media company combining publishing, radio, and digital assets. Under NZME, the Bay of Plenty Times became part of a national network of regional newspapers. NZME lists the Bay of Plenty Times among its current publishing brands, and its Bay of Plenty presence expanded in March 2024 when it acquired Tauranga-based SunMedia, including SunLive, The Weekend Sun, Coast & Country News, and New Farm Dairies.
In 2023 a second large donation of negatives and Optical Discs containing born digital photographs was made to Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries’ Heritage and Research Team. This captured images from the late 1970s through to 2012. These will enter the teams schedule of work in the future.
Users of Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries can access recent editions from 2008 onward through the library’s PressReader subscription, available free to library card holders.
Sources:
Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, The Bay of Plenty Times, 1872 - (Organisation)
Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, Gifford-Cross Photographic Collection
Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, Bay of Plenty Times moments in history
Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, William (Bill) Cross interviewed by Rosalie Smith in 1985
Tauranga District Museum Oral History Unit, Interview with Mr William Frederick Wallis CrossA Bay of Plenty Times timeline (1995), part of the Vertical Files in the former New Zealand Room (Tauranga Library)
Papers Past (Bay of Plenty Times)
New Zealand Media and Entertainment (Wikipedia)
