WET Trustee Rob McPherson is working on a project which will soon see a further 20,000 digitised pages of the Ellesmere Guardian available to view free of charge, as part of the Papers Past project.

The “Guardian” was published at Southbridge and then Leeston twice weekly from 1880 until 1974, when it became a weekly until it ceased publication in 1981. Circulating throughout the then Ellesmere County, it provided detailed reports on all aspects of rural life and of its many townships. Also recorded were developments and changes in governance, infrastructure and industry.

The National Library of New Zealand has responsibility for the Crown’s documentary heritage collections. To this end, it is undertaking a “Papers Past” project to permanently record and make available past newspapers by digitising pages of interest. Fully indexed and searchable, it is freely available online. To date, there have been over a million pages from more than fifty newspapers digitised.

Interest from WET and others in indexing the Ellesmere Guardian saw available copies of the paper’s initial years to 1906 being digitised late in 2008. This was done with widespread support and financial contributions coming from the National Library, Lincoln University Library, Christchurch City Library, Selwyn District Council and WET.

Now WET is partnering the National Library to coordinate the considerable interest in digitising some 20,900 pages of the Guardian, up to the end of 1945, that will provide ready access to a rich source of material from the activities of Ellesmere’s communities. This includes two World Wars, the Spanish ‘flu epidemic, the Great Depression, technology changes such as the impact of the internal combustion engine, as well as a myriad of social activities. The period involves copyright issues but The Press and Fairfax have generously given permission for this to happen.

Costs are considerable but with the continued support of the organisations already involved and others, including the Ellesmere Historical Society, we are confident these can be met. The project is well underway with plans for the new material to be available around March 2011.

The digitised copies of the Ellesmere Guardian which are currently available (1891-1906)  can be accessed by visiting the website of the Papers Past project.