Cairns Advertiser & Smithfield Observer [newspaper]

The Cairns Advertiser & Smithfield Observer was the region's first newspaper. It was a four-page publication, printed weekly every Saturday from 21 April 1877, by proprietors Hill, P.W. Byrne and Edward Engelbreckt August Marius Rhode.

A "short term" after the newspaper was established, it was purchased by Dr. Edward Myers, who continued publishing the weekly paper as The Cairns Advertiser (the 'Smithfield Advertiser' being dropped as Old Smithfield township was deserted by this time). Dodd Smith Clarke was the paper's editor. Clarke had been a member of George Elphinstone Dalrymple's 1873 expedition to explore the North-East coast of Australia, and as well as newspaper editor, he worked in Cairns as a commission agent, fowarding agent, timber merchant, and auctioneer.

Myers printed the final edition of the Cairns Advertiser on Saturday 24 September 1881, and then moved the printing machines to Herberton. In November 1881 Myers began publishing The Herberton Advertiser and Western Observer, which ran until 1893.

James Warren Collinson, Catherine Mary Kingsford-Smith, The Historical Society of Queensland Inc., James Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
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This artefact comprises four photographs of the first edition of The Cairns Advertiser & Smithfield Observer. The original newspaper was held in the Cairns Post [newspaper] office on Abbott Street in Cairns. In July 1938 the notable Cairns historian, James Warren Collinson (1877-1966), took photographs of the paper.1 The photographs, taken when the paper was a little over 50 years old, shows that the original was in poor condition - torn, dirty, ripped and badly water-damaged.

Collinson presented facsimiles of the photographs to the monthly meeting of the Historical Society of Queensland at Newstead House on 25 October 1938. The facsimile, or a copy of it, was lodged with the John Oxley Library (State Library of Queensland) on 11 November 1938.

Collinson also appears to have presented facsimile copies of the newspaper to Catherine Mary Kingsford (1857-1938) of South Brisbane. Catherine was the daughter of Alderman Richard Ash Kingsford, who had served as mayor of Brisbane and was the first mayor of Cairns. Catherine married William Charles Smith and their son was the aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, who dissapeared on a flight in 1935.2

Collinson announced that he intended turning the photographs into lantern slides, which he would use to illustrate lectures about the history of North Queensland.3 He presented several illustrated lectures over the next few years, including one titled 'The Tropic North - Cardwell to Cooktown' to the Historical Society of Queensland in Brisbane in April 1941;4 'Peeps Into the Past of Cairns' to the Cairns Legacy Club at the RSSAILA Rooms in August 1941;5 and one to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Cairns at the Adult Education Centre in Cairns in 1951.6 All these "bright and breezy lectures" were "illustrated by Mr. Collinson's excellent collecion of lantern slides and photographs".

Although The Cairns Advertiser & Smithfield Observer was published every Saturday for nearly four and a half years between 1877 and 1881, there are no known extant copies of the paper. These facsimiles of photographs are all that survives. The Cairns Post, now part of News Corp Australia, still occupies the same offices in Abbott Street, Cairns, but they do not have the original newspaper from 1877.

• ^1. 'Nothern History', Cairns Post, Saturday 23 July 1938: 6. ↩

• ^2. 'Brisbane Diary', The Courier-Mail, (Brisbane), Wednesday 26 October 1938: 6. ↩

• ^3. 'Nothern History', Cairns Post, Saturday 23 July 1938: 6. ↩

• ^4. 'Lecturer's tribute to Pioneers', The Courier-Mail, (Brisbane), Wednesday 30 April 1941: 10; 'Romance of Far Northern Settlement', The Telegraph, (Brisbane), Wednesday 30 April 1941: 17. ↩

• ^5. 'Peeps into Cairns' Past', Cairns Post, 30 July 1941: 3; 1 August 1941: 3; 2 August 1941: 3. ↩

• ^6. 'Adult Education', Cairns Post, 27 September 1951: 5. ↩