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I read in the Brisbane Courier 4th August 1914 that the proprietor of the Waipawa Mail (Charles Mitchell Whittington) passed away here in Brisbane and is now buried in Toowong Cemetery. Does your museum have any information on what happened to the Waipawa mail thereafter? Presumably it changed hands as I know it continued on for at least a few months thereafter. Do you have copies of the Waipawa Mail in your Museum?

Regards

John Moore

From: Jan
To: John
Subject: Waipawa Mail/Charles Whittington

Hi John,

It was interesting to read your questions.

I knew that the Waipawa Mail went on for years and finally merged with the Waipukurau Press and became CHB Mail - the once a week free newspaper that we all get here in Central Hawkes Bay. But I didn't know a huge amount more - apart from knowing that, yes, our museum does have a fair number of copies of the Waipawa Mail, but a more complete collection is up in the Hawkes Bay Museum in Napier. Our local Museum also has a fair number of them on microfesh.

But apart from that I have never really looked into the history of the Waipawa Mail itself.
It has been a good source of information for a lot of my other enquiries and my mother has a few copies of old ones that have something in them regarding her family.

Anyway to answer your question I went straight to "Abbott's- Ford, the History of Waipawa" Book by our local historian Margaret Gray and this is what I found out - this is a précis of Margaret wrote about the Waipawa Mail....

‘The Mail’ was first published on Saturday 14th September 1878 by Joseph Ivess. He believed a settlement without a newspaper was like a dumb man – it had no voice.
One year later on 14th September 1879 it was sold to Wilding, Bodle and company.
On June 12th 1880 Waipawa Mail Newspaper and Printing Co. Ltd was formed with Mr H. Wilding as chairman. The newspaper at that time was printed and published on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
In April 1884 the business was taken over by incoming proprietors Thomas Johnston (Printer) and Samu7el Johnson (Publisher). During this period the style of the Mail altered and the content of overseas news increased.
By 1888 J Hornsby took over.
By 1900 C.M. Whittington took over and ran the paper until his death in 1914, then subsequently by his Estate.
During the 1930’s, Mr Critchley produced the ‘Mail’ but with the advent of World War II the Waipawa Mail ceased producing the newspaper, carrying on just as a printing works.
With the end of the war, Mr H.F. Franks took up the Mail and began printing the newspaper again in the form we know it today – a free weekly paper.
Julius Hansson joined Mr Franks in partnership in 1950 and a couple of years later Mr W Strang joined the Waipawa Mail. At this stage Mr Franks retired, leaving Mr Hansson and Mr Strang in partnership. In the 1960’s Mr K Grant joined the team that produced the very popular Waipawa Mail. In 1978 after one hundred years of serving Waipawa, the ‘Mail’ was purchased by the Herald-Tribune. 1979 saw the amalgamation of the CHB Press, Waipukurau, Hawkes Bay Herald Tribune Print and the Waipawa Mail as a new identity “CHB Print” now operating from Waipukurau.

Since Margaret wrote this the CHB Print (printing side of business) and CHB Mail (newspaper side) have changed hands a couple of times - Its now owned by APN Print. But we still have a local paper that comes out each week with lots of local stories and happenings. I think its one of the main ways of us knowing what's going on locally - and of course being a printed word; it is also a way of documenting our history.
That's definitely what a lot of the older Mail's are used for.

I noticed that in your email you said that Charles Mitchell Whittington died and is buried in Brisbane. That's really interesting because I noticed from Margaret's book that he still owned the Waipawa Mail at that time - and it was taken over after his death by his Estate for quite some years. I wonder how this happened? Did Charles own the paper - but live in Brisbane, leaving others in Waipawa to actually produce the paper and run the business there? Or was he there on holiday when he died? or what?
You might know the answers to these questions - and if you do I would love to know them.

Anyway, I don't know if any of this helps. Hope it does

:-) Jan