The Chronicle appeared every Friday morning with some exceptions. As well as providing news and advertising, its first owner and editor Mr Luke J. Wilkinson was not afraid to use blunt language when reporting on issues both important and trivial. In the words of Helen Gregory in her book 'Making Maroochy', The Chronicle "scrutinized the Council's policies and demonstrated the outspoken criticism typical of the independent press of the era. The editor provided a forum for all manner of complaints and criticism, reinforced by his own straightforward comments.

"The Chronicle's full reports of every nuance of Council debate and discussion contrasted vividly with the very terse style of the official minutes. Wilkinson's enthusiastic exercise of the freedom of the press was rewarded by the Council's threat to ban him from Council meetings. His response to this 'boisterous treatment' was to stand unsuccessfully in the Council elections, in the interests of reform." By 1905 he had taken on a partner, A. A. McFadden from Gympie, but eighteen months later Mr McFadden bought Wilkinson out and took another partner, Alex. W. Thynne, who was then the sole practising solicitor in Nambour. Mr Thynne immediately moved his solicitor's office into The Chronicle's premises. As owner/editor, Andrew Alfred McFadden continued Wilkinson's policies and maintained the newspaper's role as the town's informant, recorder and conscience. {31-8-1906, p.4}  {21-12-1907, p.3}

  Andrew Alfred McFadden
Photograph courtesy Sunshine Coast Libraries

On 22nd December 1922 the newspaper's name was enlarged to the Nambour Chronicle, but for some time after that pages could still be headed 'The Chronicle', e.g. the issue of 20th August 1926, page 3. In 1923 Mr Thynne sold his share to McFadden, and Mr Thynne had to transfer his solicitor's office to Howard Street, where it was burned down in the great fire of the following year. Mr McFadden unfortunately died soon after buying Mr Thynne out, and the paper passed on to his three sons, Cecil, Victor and Bert, who all took an active part in running the newspaper. The McFadden family sold their interest in the paper to the Toowoomba Newspaper Company in 1964. By 1966 the paper had outgrown its Currie Street premises and moved to a new site adjoining nearby Price Street. The newspaper was bought out by the Sunshine Coast Daily in 1980, that firm closing it down in 1983. Over the years several attempts have been made to restart the Nambour Chronicle – the last one is still publishing, but the paper's name has been changed to Nambour Weekly.

The office of the Nambour Chronicle in Currie Street, Nambour, a few doors from the Commercial Hotel. The date is 1932. The site is not far from today's Nambour Weekly offices.
Photograph courtesy Sunshine Coast Libraries

A virtually complete set of the newspaper's issues is kept on microfiche film at the Council Library in Nambour. In 2007 all of the issues from 1903 to 1955 were transferred to PDF (Portable Document Format) computer files. These may now be examined either at the Heritage Library section of the Nambour Library, or over the internet by clicking here. The clarity of the images approaches the quality of the original pages, but as some of the older issues are technically inferior, the images of these can be variable. There are a small number of torn, damaged or missing pages.

So it is that the original Chronicle still serves an important function for any person interested in the history, development and people of the Sunshine Coast. In every issue there are stories and facts of tremendous value, and these are now freely available to everyone on-line.

References to articles in The Chronicle or Nambour Chronicle are shown at the beginning of some stories in a similar form to this example:
The details for this account were taken from the Nambour Chronicle. The issue of 11-1-1924, pages 2, 7 and 9 describes the fire that had occurred six days before and its effects, and the issue of 29-2-1924, page 8 describes the events that took place on the night of the fire, as revealed by an official inquiry.

References throughout a story appear in the body of the text thus: {26-1-1917, p.2}  This directs the reader to the issue of 26th January 1917, page 2.  

The monochrome pictures illustrating these pages are from Picture Sunshine Coast, part of the catalogue of the Sunshine Coast Libraries. They are used with permission from the Sunshine Coast Libraries, operated by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, which owns the copyright. Many thanks to Librarian Caroline Foxon for her assistance in this regard. The pictures can be accessed over the internet here.

An aerial photograph of Nambour taken in 1940 appears here. Permission has been granted by Geoscience Australia, owner of the copyright on this photograph, for it to be used on this website.