Auckland Star 1870 - 1945

The Evening Star first appeared in Auckland in January 1870 more by accident than careful design. With ambitions beyond his clerkship at one of Auckland’s morning dailies, the Southern Cross, William Ferrar placed an advertisement seeking a partner in a publishing venture. A former Presbyterian minister, the Rev George McCullagh Reed, responded while passing through Auckland on his way back to Australia from the West Coast goldfields, and the two men met. Despite having little capital, no influential friends and minimal experience, they quickly agreed to begin an afternoon paper, of more liberal persuasion, in opposition to the Evening News. Julius Vogel, manager of the Southern Cross, agreed to print copies of the four page paper, with Reed, who had some writing ability, the editor and Ferrar selling advertisements.