The Herald (Melbourne)

The Port Phillip Herald was first published as a semi-weekly newspaper on 3 January 1840 from a weatherboard shack in Collins Street.

Until its establishment as a separate colony in 1851, the area now known as Victoria was a part of New South Wales and it was generally referred to as the Port Phillip district.

But within eighteen months of its inauguration, the Port Phillip Herald had grown to have the largest circulation of all Melbourne papers.

Bringing his wife and eight children, his staff and machinery to Melbourne, Cavenagh first produced the Port Phillip Herald as free editions.

Under George Cavenagh's leadership the paper would denounce adversaries, challenge ideas, and employ negative emotive language in an astute invective manner.

In the early 1840s this was manifest in dealing with Judge John Walpole Willis which resulted in severe fines being imposed on Cavenagh.

The Argus, which would not yet be a daily until 18 June 1849, scorned its rival's change of schedule with this report on 2 January 1849: The commencement of 1849 seems likely to prove an era of some moment, in the annals of the Port Phillip Press.

[4] The Herald, with its sister publications such as The Weekly Times, expanded and in 1921 a new headquarters was built in Flinders Street, designed by the successful commercial architects HW & FB Tompkins.

[7][8] The Herald ceased publication on 5 October 1990 and merged with sister morning newspaper The Sun News-Pictorial to form the Herald-Sun, which contained columns and features from both of its predecessors.