Dawlish Gazette

ESTABLISHED in 1897, the Dawlish Gazette was founded by John Eunson, a printer from London, who came to Dawlish during the early 1890s with his wife and two sisters and rented The Moorings and Littlehame, then 28 and 29 The Strand. Mr Eunson set up a small printing works at the rear of number 29 in buildings which had been the stables and coachmans... quarters. The original Dawlish Gazette order office was in the front room of The Moorings and was run by Mrs Eunson who often had as her office companion a rather worldly wise parrot which became well known for its salty use of language! The Dawlish Gazette first appeared on Saturday, April 24, 1897 and cost one penny. It was printed on an Albion Press. The press stood as high as the room in which it was operated. This presented a problem due, remarkably enough, to the impressive eagle which was not there for decoration but as part of the machines leverage system. When the press was working the eagle would rise and fall, so a hole had to be specially made through the ceiling above to give it space. People working upstairs would have been familiar with the sight of the majestic metal bird appearing through the floor. The eagle can still be seen at Dawlish Museum. Later a cylinder printing machine, driven by a gas engine, took over production. Typesetting ceased to be handset and was set mechanically by a Linotype machine. In the following years gradual improvements helped to keep the Gazette abreast of printing and production technology. Today, these machines are regarded as museum pieces. Gone are the huge machines with all their noise. The Gazette is now typeset on Apple computers using QuarkXpress software and complete pages are sent direct to plate making at the printers. A modern Web Offset press is employed to print thousands of copies in a very short time. It is all a far cry from the noisy, sometimes dirty, extremely precise methods of times gone by. The Gazettes first reporter was the late William J Holman, second son of Thomas Holman of the Strand Cafe and ...Read More