The Hamilton Spectator
J. G. O’NEIL
IN THE MIDDLE of the 19th century and for a long time afterwards, newspapers were started for political purposes.
Since papers were partisan and a political party wanted to plead its case through a sympathetic medium, leaders were keenly conscious of the need to have at least one editor on their side in the more important centres of population.
The partisan character of the press must be laid to the activities of Robert Gourlay and William Lyon Mackenzie in the earlier days, and to George Brown and George McDougall in the Confederation era.
Not that any editor of that day needed either example or encouragement in using his pen like a whip. Gourlay seems to have been the inventor in Upper Canada of the art of Canadian political criticism. Mackenzie carried it into his Colonial Advocate and perfected its stinging qualities.
The printed word was the chief medium of communication so the newspaper as a political organ became the paramount influence.
Reforms
AFTER THE CIVIL eruption of 1837, Mackenzie’s exile and the suppression of the revolt did not obscure the need for reform. Some of the reforms were carried out by the so-called Family Compact itself — notably Sir Allan MacNab when he assumed office in the fifties.
However, the Conservative Party needed voices other than the tough old-time writers who had supported MacNab and the central powers at Toronto.
Someone was needed to speak for the new Conservative Party which was growing up in Kingston centred around the young John A. Macdonald.
This need was felt strongly in the thriving town of Hamilton. In 1846, a deputation headed by Edwin Dalley went to Montreal and sought out Robert Reid Smiley, a young master printer and native of Ireland who had learned his trade in Kingston and gone to Montreal to improve his prospects.
The proposition of starting a paper in Hamilton was put to him and the 29-year-old man of delicate frame and feature undertook the task.
He arrived in Hamilton with a small printing press and on July 15, 1846, printed the first copy of The Spectator and Journal of Commerce.
After becoming established, Smiley hired as his editor another Irishman, William Gillespy, who was not only a trenchant writer, but a man of vision and organizing ability.
Four pages
IN SOME INSTANCES this supporting of parties by editors bought its rewards.
A friendly government in power would see that the printing establishment got its share of government printing. Those out of favour would snort about the paper “living on government pap.”
But in most instances the editors kept themselves free to feel critical even of their friends if they so chose.
Certainly Smiley did. Once he was accused of being “in Sir Allan MacNab’s pocket.”
A brisk reply to this charge and a reference to the paper’s policies as compared to those of Sir Allan soon silenced this criticism.
MacNab was handled with discernment and kindliness by the young newspaper, but was never indulged.
Smiley’s first paper came out twice a week and consisted of four pages, but each copy was actually one sheet printed on both sides and folded in the middle. The paper was at first made from rags but by the sixties other fibres were being incorporated. The original rag paper sheets lasted for many years and did not turn yellow.
The first editions were printed on a hand press. In 1852 after The Spectator had become a daily, Smiley, rather proudly it seemed, offered the flatbed press for sale because he had ac- quired a much larger one. He also sold off much of his commercial printing equipment and bought new and larger machines.
The early weekly Spectator editions circulated at first to a few hundred persons and then a few thousand subscribers. For many years the price was two cents, a figure upset by the entry of the Herald into the local field at one cent.
Racked by consumption, Smiley showed little diminution in his powers. In deference to the dread plague which was weighing upon him, he took time off to visit his beloved homeland. After he returned to Hamilton, suddenly one summer day he suffered a hemorrhage and died.
Smiley lived to see the MacNab administration implement some of the reforms he had advocated and he also saw the rise of the person with whom, by conviction, he was in far greater sympathy, John A. Macdonald.
At Smiley’s death in 1855. Gillespy became publisher. He held his dual role of publisher and editor until 1864. Gillespy played a leading part in the founding of the Canadian Press Association in 1859. This was not the news service which bears that name today but preceded the Canadian Daily Newspaper Association.
Editorials
THE QUALITY of the dialogue of the 1850s may be seen in an editorial in Smiley’s column on the occasion of the announcement that Hamilton’s Great Western railway had won the right to build the line to Toronto:
“Some of our Toronto contemporaries are writing very indignantly, and quite as foolishly on railway matters again, although they are apparently as ignorant of the subject as their Great Northern engineer was with road making when he had recourse to stumps for filling up, and easy grades for weak locomotives, whereby the government guarantee has been jeopardized.
“Our ordinarily slow friends cast off all their lethargy when Hamilton sets them an example of exertion but they might as well work harmoniously, and save their indignation until it is better deserved
“Sir Allan MacNab and the Great Western Company are assailed because the powerful friends of the line in England have secured what is gall and wormwood to Toronto, viz.: the immediate continuation of our road to the sister City, from the depot of the Great Western Company, at Hamilton.
“The inhabitants of Toronto have always been excessively afraid of a railway connection with this city, and have, in their vexation over disappointed hopes, perpetrated some of the most ludicrous things which sane men could be guilty of proposing ….
“They have been defeated in all their attempts against the Great Western Railway in general, and Hamilton in particular, and should not continue to grumble when it can avail them nothing.”
“The inhabitants of Toronto have been excessively afraid of a railway connection with this city, and have, in their vexation over disappointed hopes, perpetrated some of the most ludicrous things which sane men could be guilty of proposing.” 1850-ERA SPECTATOR EDITORIAL
Confederation
THE SPECTATOR faithfully reported the Crimean war, the gathering storm in the United States, the great debates leading to Confederation and the shocks which Canada withstood on the eve of union as the U.S. conflict ended and the Fenian raids began.
Hon. Thomas White bought out William Gillespy in 1864 and was present to represent The Spectator at the festivities on July 1, 1867.
In 1870 he turned his holdings over to his editor David McCulloch and left for Montreal and The Gazette. McCulloch was publisher through the days of Macdonald’s first government, into the Pacific scandal and finally Macdonald’s fall.
In 1877, William Southam, accompanied by William Carey as business associate, came to the city from London, Ontario and acquired McCulloch’s interests in The Spectator. Mr. Southam became its publisher. McCulloch remained as editor until 1881.
The Spectator in the years after Confederation had suffered varied fortunes and needed a strong and imaginative mind to bring it back to the prosperity and influence which it enjoyed with Smiley.
Under its new owner the paper found itself in the hands of a man prepared to become fully involved in the struggling industrial community and to play a part in its development.
Although he was a man of conviction, Mr. Southam gave a series of most competent editors full freedom of expression over the years, enforcing but one cardinal point — that the paper should always seek the welfare and prosperity of its readers in Hamilton and district.
These editors included the adventurous and engaging Augustus Toplady Freed, Herbert Fairburn Gardiner, historian of much that is obscure in Ontario’s past, the trenchant Jones Lewis Lewis and perhaps most outstanding, the master of the quip and short paragraph, John Robson Cameron.
All waged their political and social battles and tangled daily with their opponents on The Hamilton Times and later with the third newspaper in the local field, The Hamilton Herald.
Many Homes
THE SPECTATOR, as well as changing in size and production, had a variety of homes. It was started on James Street North, opposite York Street but by 1860 had moved to Main and Hughson Streets. In the 1870s it was located on the North-East corner of James and Main. Later the plant occupied floors over what is now Parke and Parke’s Drugstore at Market and MacNab.
After Mr. Southam had been in charge for 20 years, the Spectator building on James Street South, where the present Royal Bank stands, was erected and occupied by 1898. It was said to be the finest office building in Hamilton or Toronto at the time.
In 1920, the present plant on King Street East was completed and occupied. Since then the building has been enlarged and improved. The paper gradually was enlarged. By the time it occupied the building on James Street South, the company had a rotary press capable of producing 32 pages without trouble and 36 if you held your breath.
After the First World War, the widening news coverage, increasing features and a rapid rise in advertising volume forced the expansion of editions from the old-style 16 or 18 pages to 24, and 32. Finally one spring day the limit of 36 was reached.
With the move to King Street East, the new presses made it possible to print 36,000 papers an hour and up to 64 pages. These machines have long since been replaced by modern giants of high speed efficiency.
Although in Confederation days Hamilton had inclined to the camp of the Reform party, the return of Sir John A. Macdonald to power in 1877. With his new National Policy (tariff protection for fledgling Canadian industries) appealed to the population of a city which was gradually becoming industrialized.
The Spectator swung behind Sir John, feeling that protection meant also shelter for the jobs of Hamilton men and women and also for money risked in the new industries being started.
The same spirit led the paper to support the founders of the Cataract Power Company when the idea of bringing power to Hamilton from DeCew Falls above St. Catharines was boldly exploited.
This coming of cheap electric power gave the community a tremendous advantage in the race for industrial might.
At the turn of the century, The Spectator expanded its overseas coverage for such events as the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, and the Spanish-American War.
By the time of the First World War, the newspaper had two large news services and had special correspondents at major points.
The Spectator vividly told the heart-rending story of sacrifice and death from 1914 to 1918. The publisher’s youngest son, Gordon Southam, organized the 40th battery from his office at the newspaper, took it overseas and gave his life at Somme.
Expansion
A GROWING CONCERN in Ontario after the war was the need for property supervised development of Hydro Electric Power. In 1926 The Spectator came out strongly in favour of Sir Adam Beck’s gigantic Hydro projects, but later, with other supporters, frowned upon his concept of a system of electric railways.
Through the depression, the newspaper continued to grow modestly. In spite of adverse times the paper expanded its features and coverage. Always the popular comics and columns appeared first and from Buster Brown and Andy Gump the list of such amusements kept growing and changing. Zimmie, the little cartoon owl, Ruth Cameron, Dr. Brady, Mutt and Jeff, Grantland Rice, Bruce Barton and scores of others, gave way to a new cast of characters as the days passed.
After newsprint rationing in the Second World War The Spectator was able to expand its news coverage, and join with other Southam papers in developing outstanding foreign and domestic news services.
Out of it all grew the newspaper of today.
The Spectator told the story of sacrifice and death from 1914 to 1918. The publisher’s youngest son, Gordon Southam, organized the 40 th battery from his office at the newspaper, took it overseas and gave his life at Somme. HAMILTON SPECTATOR FILE PHOTOS