Tingha resident Herb Foley caught up on the latest news from yesteryear last week after a Queanbeyan resident discovered a copy of the Tingha Advocate’s August 22, 1930 edition under the floorboards.
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At the time of press, Tingha was near the height of a tin mining boom, after discovery in the late 1800s, and winding down from the turn of the 20th Century.
News and current affairs had gradually replaced advertisements at the front of the edition in the previous decade as war broke out over Europe and the industrial revolution continued.
By August 1930 the Advocate was reporting on the latest in international, national and local news.
It was those big things happening on the world’s stage that people became interested in.
- Sonya Lange, Inverell Public Library manager
“I think perhaps it was those big things happening on the world’s stage that people became interested in,” Inverell Library manager Sonya Lange explained, revisiting archived copies of the Advocate, Tingha Miner and Inverell Times last week.
“And I guess to a certain extent it was going to depend on the editor of the paper as well because a lot of the time there was a person who was driving it, they owned the paper, they were the editor, they did everything in the days before newspapers were owned by (media) chains.”
Making news in August 1930, President Hoover bemoaned “acute conditions” brought about by an extended drought in the United States, with reports from near 300 counties that crops were “almost completely ruined in most of them”, while a Staggy Creek tennis team defeated the Tingha locals in a close match 17 sets to 15.
Mr Foley explained that at the time it was common practice when laying linoleum or other floor coverings, to underlay with newspaper and as residences from the era are increasingly undergoing renovation, the sometimes unintended time capsules under the floor are coming to light.
He said he planned to present his recently acquired edition of the Advocate to the Inverell Library where numerous copies of Tingha’s two major mastheads, the Advocate (1914 – 1932) and the Miner (1905 – 1908) are stored on micro-film.