The establishment of a government in Fiji in the second half of the 19th century, during the early colonial days, warranted the enactment of laws to guide public life and how the machinery of government was run.
Inevitably, this required the setting up of some kind of printery to gazette laws that were passed and record appointments and decisions.
Under Ratu Seru Cakobau’s government that ran from1871 to1874, a Fiji Government Gazette was first introduced in 1871 and D’Arcy Murray was appointed the official printer to the administration in Levuka. Then in October 1878, William Cook, was appointed Government Printer to her Majesty’s Government.
The Letterpress section with a Flatbed Heidelberg machine in operation. Picture: FT FILE Fiji’s capital officially moved to Suva in 1882.
According to The Fiji Times of July 9, 1978, the first Government Printing and Stationery Department was set up in Suva in 1883.
This was on a site where the Defence Club now stands at the intersection of Gordon and Hercules Streets.
Mr Edward March was appointed Government Printer in September that year (1883), a position he held until the end of 1912.
Mr Sebastian Bach succeeded Mr March in 1913. A strict disciplinarian with a strong personality, he was remembered by his staff as a tall man with ‘a fiery beard’ and a ‘temper to match’.
It was during Mr Bach’s stint at the helm of leadership that government’s printing press was transferred from its original Suva premises along Gordon Street.
When Mr Bach retired at the end of 1927, the printing department in Suva had operated for 44 years with only two people as printers.
In 1915, the printing premises were moved to the corner of Carnarvon and Kimberly Streets, the south-west end of the old Government Building area and the current site of the National Archives of Fiji.
When the administration base of Government was transferred to the new Government Buildings in 1939 and the derelict wooden premises at Gordon Street were eventually demolished, the Government’s press remained as the sole survivor on the original block of land established for Government’s colonial administration.
And as public services expanded, the press too had to grow to meet the growing requirements of the civil service.
In 1956, the staff members of Government’s printing press were 69. Around the time, the department handled more than 3000 printing orders a year, ranging from a ‘modest handful of labels to publications involving several hundred weight or even tons of paper’.
Approximately, one million forms, receipts and other items were printed every month and about 70,000 covered books, 20,000 pads and over 100,000 Gazettes, brochures, reports and booklets were cleared by the department during the year, consuming more than a ton of paper every week.
In addition to the press prints all legislation for the Western Pacific High Commission Territories, which included the British Solomon Islands, protectorate and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony – and supplies the bulk of their other printing requirements were done in Suva.
Work was also undertaken for the ‘Condominium of New Hebrides’ (Vanuatu) and the Kingdom of Tonga.
Even the little island of Pitcairn had its modest printing orders fulfilled by the humble department in Suva.
The Fiji Military Forces and most statutory bodies in the Colony also relied on the Government Press.
Apart from the different printing jobs, the department was also used to produce a number of regular publications including the Fiji Royal Gazette (published every week) together with legal supplements, Bills and Ordinances, the Western Pacific High Commission Gazette, the Agricultural Journal, the Education External Gazette, the Fijian School Journal, Fiji Information and Na Mata – the monthly 16-page vernacular Fijian newspaper.
Every month a statistical digest of the Colony’s trade was published on behalf of the Customs Department.
Departmental annual reports and any other special reports were published in the form of Council Papers, as they were received during the year, and the full proceedings of the Legislative Council meetings were printed in session copies of Hansard. They were the main regular items published.
In 1956, the Legislative Council elections and the Census had entailed a good deal of additional work. Also printed in 1956 were the new telephone directory and a 52- page consolidation of Fiji Information.
Two substantial publications, both illustrated, were produced on behalf of the Agricultural Department – “The Grasses of Fiji and “Soil Erosion and its Control”. In 1956, two books Force Standing Order for Police and Fijian Grammar by Ms G.B.Milner – were ready for the press.
Although the department was basically a service department – where goods were supplied to most government departments free of charge – the income from other official bodies, plus the sale of publications in Fiji and overseas, returned more than 10,000 pounds a year to the Colony’s revenue
. The publication activities increased over 1955 and 1956 and covered a wide range of subjects.
Books produced at the press were sold by booksellers throughout the Colony and a growing overseas clientele was catered for by mail order.
The best seller in those years, as far as overseas purchases were concerned – was Mr R.A.Derrick’s “The Fiji Islands”, a geographical handbook which enjoyed steady sales since it was first printed in 1950.
Copies of the book were purchased by libraries and universities throughout the world and by book agents in many foreign as well as English-speaking countries. Banknotes, postage stamps and bond certificates were among those documents never printed at the Government printer.
However, there was an exception. During the war years, when silver coins and pennies of the Colony were either gifted by allied troops or otherwise put to more profitable usage, local paper currency was printed in the denominations of 1d, 1s and 2s, to meet the emergency.
“At one stage during the war, with acute shortage of metal, the Government Printer printed a supply of notes in one shilling and two shilling denominations and some Fiji one penny notes were printed in Australia,” the Reserve Bank of Fiji website says.
“In 1942, when some normal notes became scarce, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand agreed that the New Zealand £1 and £5 notes, being printed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, be overprinted for local use by the Government Printer.”
“In 1969, Fiji changed to a decimal currency. The currency structure was the 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c and 20c coins, and the $0.50, $1, $2, $5, $10, and $20 notes.” The department was divided into four main sections – one clerical and three technical.
On the clerical, a small office staff attended to routine accounting duties, sales to the public and the supply of all stationery to Government offices. The composing section handled the meticulous typesetting, proofreading and preparation of the type in readiness for printing.
Local staff worked under the supervision of their respective foremen. In spite of modern machines of the 1950s, a great deal of the success of printing efforts depended on human factor.
The rapid demand for printed publications and the increased workload of the printing office made it develop into a separate department. Government decided in 1974 to let the then first local Government Printer Tui Sanerive plan and build the present Government printing premises in Vatuwaqa.
The construction of the new building was first instigated by R.LGribble in 1968 who was then the Government Printer but it was not until 1974 that Mr Sanerive was given ‘the go ahead to build’.
The $900,000 premises, which took over three years to build, also included a school for printers run by the National Training Council with the aim to “keep up with the technical explosion’ that was hitting the printing industry then.
The school trained printers to do commercial as well as Government work.
“New services the press will provide would include book printing for the Education Department and colour and map printing.
In January 2019, Government’s printery services were privatized as Fijian Holdings Limited took full ownership of the business. Government says this was in line with governments aim to encourage private sector participation in divestment space.
