You may wonder what on earth is going on when you look at these pictures above, and check our new masthead. No. We are not going back to (the 1907) beginning of the original newspaper for Bangalow. Rather we are doing something so very typical of this town – combining elements of our past and our future. Creating something new and informative that blends the best of both worlds: an old tradition with a modern twist.
This new version rises, phoenix-like from the ashes of the past, both literally and figuratively. Like many Bangalow businesses in the early part of the 20th century, The Herald had a chequered career – most notably in terms of its brushes with arson.
The first edition was published in early April 1907 by Mr F. W. Vincent with the stated policy that it “is in the best interests of the community, entirely and exclusively progressive.” Pretty similar to its aims now.
According to the Lismore Northern Star records they had received, on Saturday 6 April, 1907, “the first number of The Bangalow Herald and Newrybar Advertiser, the latest addition to the district’s Press”. Tracing the Herald trajectory has an element of pass the parcel. Soon after Vincent started it, it was sold to G. J. Nicklin, then D. Miller and, in 1912 to F. Kenna. Then J. E. Munroe was at the printing presses until the disastrous fire of 1920, when the building was reduced to ashes. Munroe resumed publishing the Herald in May, printing in Lismore until he could obtain another plant (as reported in the Northern Star on Saturday 8 May, 1920.) After only a few issues this also ceased publication.
In 1921 it was started up again by Queenslander J. Belbin and, in 1925, was taken over by Thomas Laidlee who had been with the publication since its inception. The final demise came in 1931 when it was again consumed by flames. As Hamilton Du Lieu wrote in his printed homage to the Herald, produced 50 years after the old paper went out of existence – “And then it disappeared into legend”.
He continues: “Fifty years later few had even heard of it. The girl at the Mitchell Library denied all knowledge of it to Judge Furnell when he was preparing his remarkable history of Bangalow: Out of the Big Scrub.
“Since the learned judge, as the boy ‘Bert’ Furnell, had delivered the paper around town in the early years after it was founded in 1907 (his wage was a sherbet “Fizzo’), he knew better.”
Fire was a constant in Bangalow’s business street in the 20s, essentially because most of the buildings were timber – and proprietors’ declining finances. By the mid 30s the insurance companies had stepped in and demanded that bricks and mortar were to be the construction material of choice. This following description of the 1931 fire helps explain why: “About four o’clock in the morning of January 9, 1931, flames roared through the small block of shops owned by Mr Shepperson in Bangalow.
“Although this was the fourth fire in 15 months, a call to the Lismore fire brigade brought no response, and by the time the Mullumbimby team arrived, it was too late. Once more the Bangalow Herald had succumbed to the furnace.”
Over the years, various businesses occupied the old newspaper office in the main street. In 1937 a Mr Akers built a shop for his butcher’s store. In the canny, recycling way of the old residents this was made using materials from the cheese factory that was down on the corner of Ballina and Byron Roads. It is now Abracadabra. Then in 1977 there was the Book Barn, in 1978 a hairdresser was added on to the front of the shop and, in 1979, a residence was built at the back. In 1980, a large store connected the new buildings with the old.
Many thanks: Our huge appreciation goes to Hamilton Du Lieu, the keeper of the flame – so to speak – for providing most of this information. Hamilton, owner of Bangalow institution Abracadabra and passionate history buff, even went to the trouble to combine with locals – old and new – to write and print a Bangalow Centenary Souvenir Edition on Friday 2 October, 1981. This was produced from his shop, which is the modern replacement for the original newspaper building, exactly 50 years after the old Bangalow Herald went out of existence.
Stephanie King