The Queensland Times is the oldest surviving provincial paper in Queensland. Founded in 1859 as the Ipswich Herald, it has continued ever since. Until a printer’s strike briefly interrupted production in 1972, it had the proud record of never having missed a scheduled issue, in spite of fires, floods and machinery breakdowns.

It was not, however, the first newspaper in Ipswich. That honour belongs to the North Australian, founded in 1855 and having on its staff two men who were to play a major part in the establishment of other Queensland newspapers, Hugh Parkinson, the foremen printer, and Arthur Sydney Lyon, the editor. The publishing office of this paper was moved to Brisbane in 1863.

One of the main aims of the Ipswich Herald was to promote Ipswich’s claims to be capital city of the Moreton bay colony as separation from New South Wales loomed. It was bought in 1861 by Hugh Parkinson and two other north Australian employees, Hugh Bowring Sloman and Francis Kidner. They changed its name to The Queensland Times and said it “would undertake to speak as from the centre of authority, the capital, and would oppose centralization in Brisbane.” The editor was J. C. Thompson, who later surveyed and laid out the city of Bundaberg. The greatest success story connected with the paper was that of a young lad, William Kippen, who rose from the position of paper seller in 1862 to become chairman of directors in 1914.

Between the 1860s and the 1880s the bi-weekly Queensland Times faced competition from other newspapers, but outlasted them all. It became a morning daily in 1899, but a depression forced it to revert to a tri-weekly publication until, in 1908, it became a daily again. We are now a member of the APN News & Media Ltd Group.