A brass plaque commemorating the site where W J Parrett first published the East Kent Gazette newspaper on July 21 1855.
The plaque reads:
William John Parrett 1833 - 1905
From this site
W.J. Parrett
First published
The East Kent
Gazette
21 July 1855
"Serving the Community for 150 Years - The Story of the East Kent Gazette
This is the cover article from Issue 12 of The Archive.
by John Clancy
Our local newspaper, the East Kent Gazette has been a part of our community for 150 years. It was launched on 21st July 1855 by William John Parrett, the eldest son of Revd William Erratt Parrett the pastor of Milton Congregational Church. The history of the newspaper is synonymous with the growth and development of Sittingbourne and district.
After attending the School for Sons of Congregational Ministers at Lewisham, followed by an apprenticeship to a chemist and printer at Daventry, William Parrett got a job, firstly with a chemist in Arundel, Sussex then later with a printer in Frome, Somerset. This was where his main interest lay and by the summer of 1855 he was ready to begin publishing his first newspaper. The time was exactly right; the Stamp Duty which had prevented many publications from appearing more frequently than monthly had been repealed and ended on 30th June 1855. This was when many provincial newspapers first started.
Less than a month later, Mr Parrett bought a monthly miscellany title from publisher John Read who had an office at 17 High Street, Sittingbourne and renamed it the Sittingbourne and Faversham Gazette. It consisted of eight-pages of local news and advertisements, and was produced on a hand-operated printing press. Mr Parrett was just 24-years-old but he had a burning ambition that his newspaper would succeed. He was not only its owner but was editor, reporter, compositor and machine man as well.
So what was ‘hot off the press’ on 21st July 1855? There was a piece about the Siege of Sebastopol, the first of many reports from the Crimean War that were to follow, and a reference to an explosion at Faversham Gunpowder Works, its second in three weeks, but these stories took second place to the advertisements which afterall, paid for the newspaper’s production. One interesting advertisement was for 'The Lincolnshire Vermin Killer' said to be ‘an effective and certain destroyer of rats, mice, beetles, bugs, cockroaches and every description of vermin and noxious insects’ which could be purchased from W.J.Parrett who described himself as a ‘stationer, Sittingbourne’. Another advertisement from a later edition offered excursions from Faversham to visit the Crystal Palace. It promised that passengers would be taken by the Steam Packet, Alma from Standard Quay, Faversham to Strood pier and thence by train to Sydenham.
?From the Court Reports it can be seen how strict the magistrates were at that time. An unfortunate Rainham labourer was sent to the House of Correction for 21 days for stealing potatoes from a field whilst a 14-year-old girl was committed for 9 days for stealing a prayer book and another book from the Minster home where she was employed. It was eagerly announced that work would soon start on the East Kent Railway’s line from Strood to Canterbury, and thence on to Dover, now that work had started on a bridge across the River Medway, work which we learned from a subsequent issue claimed the lives of three workmen.
A contentious issue of the day was heavy drinking about which one reader wrote to the editor. He wanted to know why publicans were keeping their pubs open long after the permitted hours. He cited one public house as being open until two o’clock one morning with a number of people singing and dancing to the annoyance of the neighbours. He demanded someone be appointed to deal with such matters and punish the miscreants.
To begin with public support for the newspaper was not good and from 17th November 1855 it changed from a weekly to a monthly publication. In March 1857 it became fortnightly and alternated between eight-pages and four-pages; the price remained one penny. From such uncertain beginnings the newspaper slowly started to prosper and by the end of September 1855 it announced a name change to the East Kent Gazette and Sittingbourne, Faversham and Sheerness Journal. Reports from Sebastopol and the Crimean War and work on the East Kent Railway continued to dominate its pages. By the end of the year the newspaper had a readership of almost 2,000 and in October 1861 the more familiar name East Kent Gazette first appeared. Ever since its’ beginning, the Gazette was always an independent newspaper and in its first edition Mr Parrett made it perfectly clear it was not his intention to make it a Party paper, but to confine it as much as possible to the publication of news.
Major changes in the production of the newspaper came in 1864 when a new printing machine was installed, a Myer’s patent Caxton cylinder printing machine that could be worked either by hand or steam power; it could print up to 1,000 copies per hour. It was at this time the ’paper announced it had attained a circulation larger than that of any other journal published in East Kent.
1866 saw another change in the style of the newspaper. A Sittingbourne, Faversham and Sheerness Gazette was published as four-pages of purely local news; the East Kent Gazette meanwhile continued with four pages of local news and four of national news. To celebrate its jubilee year in 1883 Mr Parrett enlarged his newspaper and reduced its price from 2d to 1d. He died in April 1905 at the age of 72, almost three months short of his 50th anniversary as editor and proprietor.
On the death of William Parrett the newspaper became a limited company, its first directors being two of his sons, Frederick James and George Francis, and Edwin Brigden, all of whom were made life managing directors, and Mr C.B.Harris. Frederick Parrett succeeded his father as editor and became chairman of the board of directors. George Parrett managed the printing department and in this capacity operated the first Linotype printing machine
installed in Sittingbourne. Mr Brigden became the company’s first secretary.
The new company acquired the Isle of Thanet Gazette in 1909 and George Parrett moved to Margate to manage it; Frederick then took on the editorship of both newspapers until his death in 1930. George Parrett succeeded him as company chairman and also became editor of the Isle of Thanet Gazette. A new editor of the East Kent Gazette was appointed, Mr R.J.G.Bennett. ‘RJGB’, as he became known to his colleagues, had joined the newspaper in 1885 to replace George Neves who had moved to Chatham to take charge of the Chatham News which had earlier been acquired by William Parrett and himself. Mr Bennett’s greatest scoops for the newspaper came during the barge strike and brickfields lock-out in the 1890s. The ’paper held the balance between the two conflicting parties and made its pages available to both sides. RJGB’s biggest scoop however came in 1911 when he got his reports of Eastchurch’s Gordon Bennett air race back to Fleet Street nearly an hour before the London journalists. Mr Bennett retired in December 1939 after fifty-five years with the newspaper but did not enjoy a long, happy retirement. Within a year he was killed, along with his wife and son-in-law, when a bomb fell on their house in Park Road.
Mr Bennett was succeeded by Mr W.G.Matthews in 1940 as editor and he too had a long and remarkable career with the firm which he had originally joined at the age of 13, working in the printing department under Mr. W.J.Parrett. Nine years later he transferred to the journalistic staff and in 1911 was appointed Works Manager. He died in June 1950 after 59 years with the newspaper. The next editor was Mr F.Brian Millen, the grandson of the newspaper’s founder. After his departure Mr Mike Marples next occupied the editor’s chair and in time he moved on to edit the company’s ‘papers in Thanet. He was succeeded by former chief reporter, Gerald Hinks, who was by then, the editor of the Chatham News. Once again it was a time of significant changes. In 1946 two of the company’s directors, Frank Millen and George Parrett died. Mr Parrett was succeeded by his son, Mr G. Warren Parrett as managing director and chairman.
In 1933 the newspaper’s offices at 17 and 19 High Street were demolished and the present offices at 21 High Street were built. In earlier times this part of the High Street had been occupied by the Portobello Inn, popularly known as ‘the Beggar’s Opera’. A major innovation took place in 1962 when Parrett and Neves Ltd, proprietors of the Chatham News, bought a web-offset printer and it was decided to use it to print the company’s three newspapers. This new printing system meant that not only could technical improvements be made, but they could be seen and appreciated by everyone. It produced a much cleaner and crisper typeface and far superior photographic reproduction. The newspaper had in the past quarter of a century, moved from a broadsheet format to the more easy-to-handle tabloid format and modified its image to meet the needs of a wider community.
A new printing centre was needed and a site was found in Crown Quay Lane, premises formerly occupied by corn merchants Filmer and Payne. The newspaper moved into its new printing centre on 2nd May 1968. Editorial production for the whole group then became centred at Sittingbourne under the control of an Editorial Director and Group Chief Sub-editor. The driving force behind many of these innovations was Graham Parrett, the son of Warren Parrett, who at the time was managing director. Like the newspaper’s founder and many of those who followed, Graham Parrett made it his business to have first-hand experience at all levels.
Local editorial control of the East Kent Gazette and its sister newspapers the Faversham Times and the Sheppey Gazette, has changed more frequently in the last quarter of the 20th century than it did during its first 100 years."
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The newspaper printed its last edition in December 2011