Charles Westwood Earle

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Last Name:

EARLE

First Name:

Charles Westwood

Deceased Date:

00-00-0000

Occupation:

Service Date:

28-03-1950

Service Provided:

Burial

Cemetery:

Bolton St

Section:

C of E

Plot Number:

3209

Record Number:

95836

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/63619873/Strike-hating-ed... The first editor of The Dominion hated strikers with a passion.

So trenchant were Charles Westwood Earle's views, and so well known his opposition, that he kept a loaded gun in his desk in case the "reds" ever came for him.

His newspaper had been founded, in 1907, to provide a strong conservative voice, after all.

A brilliant journalist and manager, Earle found his niche at the morning paper and became an omnipresent factor in its development.

During the great strike of 1913, when Wellington became a battleground and the country was bitterly divided, Earle was a leading voice supporting the Massey government's crackdown on protest.

He supported the recruitment of "special constables" - farmers and rural labourers enlisted as officers and armed with truncheons and revolvers.

Massey had deemed them necessary to contain the outbreak of workers' anger centred on the waterfront and docks of the capital in October 1913.

On October 29, the specials arrived in Wellington. There were almost immediately violent clashes with strikers, which came to a head on November 3 and 4. A riot in Buckle St was broken up by mounted specials, who charged into the mob.

Cadet reporter Pat Lawlor was in the thick of things, filing a report that the specials had fired shots at the strikers.

Back at the newspaper, Earle summoned him to the editor's office, where he was confronted by the police commissioner, who wanted to know what he had seen. An interrogation followed.

"I stuck to my guns about the guns," Lawlor wrote years later. "I read my report the next day to find it had been censored . . . Alongside was a statement by the commissioner that the specials had not participated in any of the gunfire."

Earle had removed any reference to shots fired. He had not deleted Lawlor's accounts of strikers ripping up fences to swat at specials.

In an editorial, Earle fulminated against the strikers' allegedly peaceful intentions.

"Do 'peacefully inclined' people defy and attack the police, threaten and assault private citizens, hurl road metal at special constables and preach anarchy and sedition?"

Another violent clash - the "Battle of Featherston St" - happened on November 5 when strikers tried to stop a shipment of racehorses.

The Evening Post was broadly pro-Massey and carried reports of brawls, fights and what it called "lurid language" throughout the crisis.

Its description of the Battle of Featherston St described specials being stretchered away bloody from beatings, and praised their "good work with the baton".

The crisis passed, as many of these things do. Neither side got what it wanted. But the legacy of the great strike stayed with the union movement - and with the Government - for many years.

Earle, always forthright in his opinions, was a central figure at The Dominion until his death in 1950.

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- The Dominion Post

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=CL1.DOM&... The Dominion was launched on the first Dominion Day, September 26, 1907, with the specific purpose of providing a strong conservative voice in the capital where the other morning paper, the New Zealand Times, was poorly run and had a Liberal Party heritage, and the much stronger Evening Post was more interested in business than party politics. When the morning daily was launched just a year after Richard John Seddon’s death, the Liberals had been in power for 16 years and would be for another five. However, under Sir Joseph Ward, the party was in decline while the Dominion’s directors and shareholders were an impressive list of leading conservative MPs and substantial Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa runholders. Of particular concern to them were the Liberal policies on labour laws, pensions and land tenure, including the break-up of large rural estates. Unsurprisingly, the newspaper was a persuasive promoter of William Massey’s Reform Party and its policies. The first editor – and he held that position, except for three years in the 1930s, until 1950 – was Charles Westwood Earle. He was also the newspaper company’s managing-director for much of the period and well-attuned to the singular requirements of his Wellington Publishing Company board. While landowner interests were pushed and ‘labour agitators’ attacked, the newspaper also supported good working conditions and backed free education. More predictably, the Dominion promoted free trade within the British Empire, sat on the fence over liquor issues, and advocated a ‘white NZ’ immigration policy. From the beginning, the newspaper’s ambitions stretched well beyond the urban confines of Wellington. There was a strong emphasis on farming news to attract readers in the Wairarapa, Manawatu and Hawke’s Bay, with correspondents in Masterton, Palmerston North and Hastings. The paper’s initial circulation of 2,600 had risen to 20,500 by 1914. By 1927, the Wellington Publishing Company was in a strong enough position to buy and close down the New Zealand Times. A year later it moved into the impressive, purpose-built six-storey building in Mercer Street that it occupied until 1970. Over the decades, the Dominion’s political stance slowly modified. Shocked by Labour’s 1935 election win, the paper congratulated the new prime minister Michael Joseph Savage but was soon vigorously attacking the government’s ‘socialist’ policies. The hostility of the Dominion and other newspapers led to the launching of the Labour Party’s own daily newspaper, the Southern Cross, in Wellington. It was the first morning opposition to the Dominion – in both political and circulation terms – since the closure of the New Zealand Times. In 1959, eight years after the Southern Cross had closed, Wellington Publishing Company directors reaffirmed their support for the monarchy and British traditions, freedom of speech and private enterprise, but conceded there might be occasions ‘where the need for state interference was clearly shown’. There was now no direct link to any political party. In the 1960s, the Dominion supported New Zealand’s involvement in the Vietnam War, but also joined with environmentalists in opposing the raising of Lake Manapouri. The paper introduced front page news in 1963 and pioneered the use of bylines by journalists. Between 1968-1972 it was published as a tabloid before reverting to a broadsheet format. In 1964, Lord Thomson’s attempt to buy the Wellington Publishing Company triggered a takeover war, with Australian publisher Rupert Murdoch the ultimate beneficiary. The 1965 Media Ownership Act limited ownership of New Zealand media companies to 20 percent, but Murdoch’s share gradually increased to 49 percent – giving his News Corporation effective control – after the legislation was repealed in 1974. In 1972, when the companies owning the Dominion and rival Evening Post merged, the resulting Independent Newspapers Ltd (INL) grew rapidly through a succession of takeovers to become one of two dominant media companies in New Zealand. In July 2002, INL’s two Wellington newspapers merged to become the morning Dominion-Post. The next year, Fairfax Media, the Australian media conglomerate, purchased, for $1 billion, most of the publishing interests of INL, including the Dominion-Post.

Papers Past > New Zealand Herald > 3 January 1927 > Page 10 > NEW YEAR HONOURS. NEW YEAR HONOURS.

FOUR NEW. ZEALANDERS. CHIEF JUSTICE KNIGHTED. MR.. R. ID. D. McLEAN, OF NAPIER C.M.G. FOR MR, J. ALEXANDER. The Governor-General announces that on the occasion of the New Year His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to confer the following honours:

K.C.M.G. (Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of. St. Michael and St. George.) 

The Honourable Charles Ferrin Skerrett, K.C., Chief Justice of New Zealand.

KNIGHT BACHELOR. Robert Donald Douglas McLean, of Hawke's Bay. 

C.M.G. (Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St." Michael and St. George.)

• John Alexander, of Auckland.
• Charles Westwood Earle, of Wellington.

MR. C. W. EARLE, C.M.G. Mr. Charles West/wood Earle is managing director of the Wellington Publishing Company, which issues the Dominion newspaper. He was born in Wellington in 1871 and was educated at. Thorndon School and Wellington College. He entered the journalistic profession in Wellington in 1887 and occupied various posts before he became editor of the Referee in 1901. He was the founder of the Dominion, of which he was the first editor, and became managing director in 1912. He has been president of the New Zealand Institute of Journalists on several occasions and has been president of the New Zealand Newspaper Proprietors' Association since 1921.

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WarEarl-t1-body-d21-d2... 1859—“Canard,” E. Snelgrove; “Midlothian,” W. Mowbray; “Wild Duck,” Cap. Babot, D'Ath and Lusac. 1862—“Stormbird”; “Asterope,” J. D. Tripe. 1863—Panama, N.Z. and Australian Royal Mail Co. (“Evening Post,” 7/2/1925). 1864–“Mallard,” T. F. Drummond, E. Feist. 1965—For shipping in the Sixties See Mr. Clarence Turner's recollections “Evening Post,” 7th February, 1925); “Tararua,” arrived March, 1865, wrecked on Waipapa Point, April, 1881 (“Evening Post,” 7th February, 1925); Weymouth,” passengers C. Earle, and P. J. Carman. The “Weymouth” brought the first cable for Cook Strait

PASSENGER LIST "WEYMOUTH" Departed Downs 1 4 1866 arrived Wellington 3 7 1866 Cabin: Dr Earle, Mr Ed Donovan