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| Much time here at ayrshirehistory.com during 2011 and 2012 has been spent labouriously scanning the pages of the old Muirkirk Advertisers. This worthwhile task has been made possible by the use of the archives of former editor, James Taylor. The Advertiser first appeared as a Christmas Special edition in the following years - 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1897! The newspaper was not published on a weekly basis though until 10 years later, in 1907. Between then and 1974, the Advertiser had only three editors. Quite an achievement for a small local paper!! The foreword below is taken from James Taylor's book, Cairntable Echo's, available on this web site, under Muirkirk Reference. THE ADVERTISER issue number 1 has been on line on this web site for many years, but by late 2012, it was time to begin to add pdf files of these invaluable publications. I predict a large amount of downloads for this material, and think that rather than a file for each weekly issue, we can incorporate four or five issues into a per month download?? The advantage is therefore that each year will obviously have only 12 files to download rather than the standard 52 or 53 separate files. The disadvantage of course is file size. For a four week month, around 42 meg, and more for a 5 week month. But in these days of faster and faster broadband speeds as well as heavy duty PC's with more than enough horse power to read a high resolution pdf file, I think the monthly files are the way to go. Comments of course are welcome. NB. File sizes are kept large to preserve quality / legibility. The per month files will appear here at random from the years 1907 - 1946 initially, which is the first lot that have been scanned. Do keep coming back to check for updates. KB - October 2012 |
| On
19th September, 1907, the first issue of "The Muirkirk Advertiser"
made its appearance in the village. It was the brainchild of the late
William Shaw Smith, who came to Muirkirk from Girvan in the latter part
of the 19th century to set up a printing business in the village. Previously
he had been in partnership with the late Thomas Gourlay in Girvan. From
his premises in Main Street, W. S. Smith had produced several Christmas
Advertisers, but he evidently thought that the time was ripe for a weekly
edition to be printed in Muirkirk, as indeed it was. It was produced
primarily as a four-page advertising sheet, but perhaps Mr Smith's own
editorial in No. 1 Issue speaks for itself:— |
|
There can be no doubt of the role that "The Advertiser" played in the life of the village, and it certainly exceeded the expectations of its founder. In its sixty-seven years of existence, in which time it only had three Editors—the late William Shaw Smith, the late John Samson, and finally, James Taylor—it became an institution in itself. During those years it chronicled most of the events of life in Muirkirk and district. JAMES TAYLOR, CAIRNTABLE ECHOS, 2002 |
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WILLIAM SHAW SMITH |
JOHN SAMSON |
JAMES TAYLOR |
| On
October 18th 1928, The Advertiser became The Muirkirk Advertiser and
Douglasdale Gazette. (Graphic shows header from a couple of weeks later,
due to extensive fading on the first edition) |
