Table of Contents
ustralia’s first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette, rolled off the press in 1803, giving the fledgling colony its only regular record of events. Many titles followed, yet the Hawkesbury region did not gain its own voice until a century later.
Local publishing began in 1843 with the short-lived Windsor Express and Richmond Advertiser. Over the next decades came the Hawkesbury Courier, Hawkesbury Times, Australian Windsor & Richmond Advertiser and Hawkesbury Chronicle. Each of these ventures paved the way for the paper that would outlast them all.
In 1888 John Charles Lucas Fitzpatrick, a 25-year-old former apprentice at the Australian Windsor & Richmond Advertiser, came home to Windsor determined to launch his own publication. He opened a modest office on the corner of George and Baker Streets, later remembered at 200-202 George Street in Windsor, with a Richmond bureau at 293 Windsor Street. Fitzpatrick managed and edited the Windsor & Richmond Gazette, helped found the Provincial Press Association, and wrote several local-history books. After selling the Gazette in 1899 he turned to politics.
Ownership then passed swiftly from John Osborne to long-time staffer Frank Campbell. The Campbell family guided the paper from 1899 to 1942. Frank edited until a stroke in 1926, after which his son Percy and Frank’s wife Catherine kept the presses running. Journalist A. T. “Tom” Murphy stepped in as managing editor in 1937 when Percy fell ill, and Catherine’s death in 1939 marked the end of that family era.
During the same period Ernest Shoobridge Carr launched the free Hawkesbury Carrier & Courier in 1933. It was later bought by Max G. Day and Bernard Byrnes, who renamed it the Hawkesbury Courier. Another voice, the Hawkesbury Herald, had begun in 1902 under William H. Pinkstone and Frederick Collison. Wartime shortages forced consolidation and, in 1942, the Gazette and Courier merged under Hawkesbury Consolidated Press. The Herald joined them three years later.
Across nearly 50,000 days since 1888, editors, journalists and photographers have reported on wars and weddings, court cases and council debates, sporting triumphs, tragedies and everyday life. Rebranded the Hawkesbury Gazette in the 1980s, and briefly issued twice weekly under the legendary Stan Stevens, the paper remained unbroken until the COVID-19 shutdown.
Today, on its 137th birthday, the Hawkesbury Gazette once again rises, proud to preserve the stories, struggles and successes of our community. Here’s to the next chapter, written together with you.
