Manuscript Newspaper
Handwritten in ink in two columns on both sides of two sheets of foolscap paper and written in a clear, bold hand this second edition of The Western Australian Chronicle and Perth Gazette published on 26 February 1831, is one of the earliest surviving copies of a Western Australia newspaper.
Written and published by William Kernot Shenton every Saturday, it featured copied newspaper items from England, government notices, shipping notes, births and deaths, purchases and sales and was available to anyone for three shillings - an enormous cost at the time and equivalent to two loaves of bread.
The newspaper remained a handwritten publication until the end of April 1831 when the Ruthven iron hand printing press arrived from Hobart, Tasmania.
The only known newspaper to precede it in the colony was The Fremantle Journal and General Advertiser, of which the Battye Library holds edition number 3, published on 27 February 1830.