The rise of a press baron

CONSPICUOUS among the plainer headstones in the Presbyterian section of the Boroondara Cemetery stands an imposing tomb, a small copy of an Egyptian temple. David Syme chose the monument before he died, based on the temple of Osiris, at Philae.

Along with dozens of stone pythons are 16 scarabs, all symbolising resurrection. According to myth, the scarabs are insurance against the silence of death. Syme did not intend his voice — or at least the voice of the newspaper with which he will always be linked, The Age — to be silent after his death. And nor has it been.

In her autobiographical Thirty Years in Australia, author Ada Cambridge wrote of The Age in 1903 as "a power in the state such as, I should think, no individual newspaper ever was in any land, and the literary beauty and philosophical significance of some of its Saturday leaders have reached a level that would have made them notable amongst men of letters anywhere".

By this time, the Melbourne newspaper had become one of the mass-circulating dailies of the English-speaking world. Every day except Sunday more than 120,000 copies circulated to a Victorian population of around 1.2 million, meaning one for every 10 people in the state.

Launched in October 1854 by John and Henry Cooke, merchants with high ideals but scant capital, how did an eight-page, sixpenny broadsheet containing more advertisements than news and views become such a power in the state?

The answer lies primarily with Scottish-born David Syme, who came to Victoria in 1852, aged 25, and took over the paper's running in 1860. By the time of his death, a century ago on February 14, his name was synonymous with The Age.

Historians and biographers have tended to explain Syme's power in terms of his pursuit of a liberal reformist political agenda for The Age and his influence, personally and through the newspaper, on politicians. Tariff protection, "land for the people" and constitutional reform were some of his key policy interests.

In 1888 the journalist Alexander Sutherland claimed in his celebratory Victoria and Its Metropolis that between 1860 and 1880 The Age was "practically the mover in all the democratic agitations which made the political history of the period", and David Syme's was really the voice of "free and independent" voters, the "secret power stirring up the people".

But this is only part of the story. Syme was before all else a brilliant manager. A forerunner of today's press barons, with a strong stable of newspapers, he built the influence of The Age through his idiosyncratic, inspired newspaper management and production. Nor was this a single-handed achievement. Syme was the key player in one of the two outstanding Australian press dynasties (Fairfax the other), before the rise of the Murdochs and the Packers.

Syme family involvement goes back to 1855, when David's older brother Ebenezer joined the newspaper as a co-editor and chief contributor, and lasted until 1983, when David's great-grandson Ranald Macdonald ended his term as managing director.

Ebenezer had set much of the newspaper's reformist policy agenda, drawing on his experience as a journalist in London and Melbourne. Buying the business in June 1856, he rescued it from a seemingly inexorable slide to insolvency. David became a partner in September that year, bringing some much-needed finance. However, it was only Ebenezer's death from tuberculosis in March 1860, leaving a wife and five children, that propelled the inexperienced David into the saddle.

He proved more than up to the task, bringing ideals, ideas and persistence to the enterprise. He took control of all aspects of the business, from framing editorial policy to buying machinery and equipment, to hiring and firing.

Well-timed reductions in the price of The Age from threepence to twopence per copy in 1867 and further, to one penny in 1868, were followed by dramatic circulation rises, while the introduction of state-of-the art printing machines in 1872 sparked the exponential growth that barely slackened for the rest of this proprietor's life. At 16,500 that year, the paper's circulation had risen to more than 45,000 10 years later and to more than 101,000 in 1892.

As the paper grew in size and reach, so did Syme's influence — which he exerted as he saw fit. The power he wielded was partly a product of the times. The last part of the 19th century was comparatively peaceful for Victoria. It was still a period of formation for the state, a time of political and economic development. Wars, even the Boer War, were far away, and for almost half a century, though always interested in foreign affairs, he was able to concentrate his energies on the problems of Victoria and its often unsatisfactory politicians.

David Syme had very clear ideas about what a newspaper should be, which he set out in the many notebooks and writings he left behind. This, from a small notepad bound in faded mauve silk. "The modern press now not a mere newspaper. It collects news, which it presents to its readers in a form which they can understand, but it is not a mere recorder of events. It also helps to form a guide to public opinion."

His own opinions — voiced in his diaries, and sometimes out of them — were often critical of parliament, both state and federal. "The press will not begrudge Parliament the honour and glory of any beneficent legislation it has carried out," he wrote in one of his notebooks, "but we do begrudge the time and energy wasted in party warfare to the neglect of urgent public business."

In his own business, David was an innovator. His meticulous attention to detail, combined with his openness to change and his preparedness to experiment and learn from mistakes, put The Age in the vanguard of 19th-century newspaper progress and development.

He was quick to take advantage of technological advances such as the completion of the undersea cable and overland telegraph that in 1872 tied Melbourne and most of Australia to the rest of the world. He collaborated with newspaper proprietors in Sydney and Adelaide to bypass existing monopolies and draw in the outside world with cable news that was hours instead of weeks old.

He extended his network of overseas agencies and correspondents and broadened the range of topics and themes featured in his newspaper. Besides the staple local politics and overseas wars, readers were given sporting news, accounts of engineering feats and imperial exploits, women's columns, serial instalments of the latest English bestsellers along with the novels of aspiring Australian writers — an encyclopedic array.

He did all this with the help of the extended Syme family, many members of whom worked for the enterprise at different times. David's older brother George came to Victoria in 1863 and also joined the staff. Not ambitious, he quietly deputised for David during an absence overseas in 1866, and provided valuable editorial support until well into the 1880s. From 1878 until 1891, Ebenezer's son Joseph was a junior partner. David's son (John) Herbert, who had worked for some years on the business side, took over Joseph's duties. In 1893 another son, Geoffrey, was employed in the "literary department", being groomed to participate in editorial policy and management. For several years around the turn of the century the youngest son, Oswald, worked in the "clerical department". In 1901 their father sent Geoffrey and Oswald to England to get experience in the running of newspaper businesses.

In his time at the helm, David inherited three publications, started four and bought two more. When he took control of the business in March 1860, besides The Age there were two weeklies that had been started early in 1855. One was the Melbourne Leader, intended as a literary and general weekly magazine for family reading. The other was the Weekly Age, a digest aimed at country readers.

In July 1860, David launched the first agricultural periodical for Victoria, the weekly Farmers' Journal and Gardeners' Chronicle. Late in 1861 he started the Australian News for Home Readers, aimed at readers in the Old World. It was published every four weeks to coincide with the departure for England of the P&O mailboat. Besides news it carried illustrations showing colonial life and "progress", printed from woodblock engravings of paintings, sketches and photographs. By stages it became the Illustrated Australian News, after the style of the Illustrated London News. One of the best of a host of Australian illustrated newspapers of the later 19th century, it proved the longest-lasting, ceasing in 1896 by which time waiting for the monthly mailboat to bring news from the other end of the earth was a thing of the past.

David was intensely aware of business competition. While rivalry with the longer-established and ideologically conservative Argus was a continuing challenge, competition in the 1860s from the other Melbourne daily, The Herald was becoming a serious threat.

Dating from 1840 (as the Port Phillip Herald), The Herald had become a penny paper in 1863, The Age only in June 1868. David managed to buy The Herald business in December of that year, masking the acquisition by registration in the names of his associates and employees. From January 4, 1869, The Herald was not issued in the morning but late afternoon. Having eliminated the morning competition, the Syme-Age business involvement in the evening Herald lasted less than two years. (The Herald would continue in publication under other management until October 5, 1990.)

Another innovation, the Age Annual, was published at the Age Office for 20 years from 1875 to 1894. Like the daily Age, this new annual recorded and commented upon Victorian government legislation.

The last periodical in David Syme's time was Every Saturday, begun in 1902. Edited by son Geoffrey, it was a small format, 32-page weekend magazine priced at one penny and containing a miscellany of light reading matter. Intended to "interest and amuse", it often featured sensational, humorous and freakish topics, drawn mainly from the American, French and English newspapers to which The Age business had placed subscriptions a few weeks before the first number appeared. While not a source of up-to-date overseas news, it did carry information about modern life in the wider world until it closed in 1912.

David Syme's passing marked the end of one era, carrying his stamp, and the beginning of another, carrying that of his son Geoffrey. These two men were major players in shaping the paper and its policy for 82 of its 154 years to date. At the time of David's death, Federation was only seven years' old and, according to some of his unpublished autobiographical notes, the changes were not always to David's liking. Certainly they diminished his personal power; he would have had far less impact on interstate politicians who came into his sphere in the early days when federal parliament sat in Melbourne.

As his successor, Geoffrey had to deal with a much wider set of problems and politicians. He could not expect to have the same degree of personal friendship (or enmity) or influence over mature Victorian politicians as had his father, nor did he seem to have any especially close relationship with those who came from distant states such as Queensland and West Australia. All the same, his political interests were closely bound to the development of the federal system.

The times were more difficult in other ways too. Geoffrey's period of responsibility covered World War I, the Depression, the rise of communism and fascism, and the beginning of World War II. As managing editor, he took The Age steadily through these challenges and in 1941 was knighted for his services to journalism. He died on July 30, 1942.

Next Thursday — the centenary of David's death and the beginning of Geoffrey's editorial regime — descendants of Geoffrey will gather and reflect on times past. There will be a formal dinner for some 30 people, based on parties he gave for his editorial staff in the 1920s and 1930s — long table, candelabra, table napkins folded like water-lilies, perhaps even finger-bowls. More or less as it used to be, although three courses instead of eight. And probably not Veuve Clicquot.

Media historian Elizabeth Morrison is writing a book about David Syme and his newspapers. Dr Veronica Condon, an art historian, is the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Syme and granddaughter of David Syme.