Willoughby, Howard

Howard Willoughby 1839-1908  began his journalism career with the  Age in 1861, but soon transferred to the Argus. 

As a literary journalist, Willoughby  wrote in the 1860s on the Maori Wars, and is remembered as Australia’s first war correspondent. His next major assignment was to report on the convict system in Western Australia when that colony was considering stopping transportation (the last colony to do so). His articles were published as a series in the Argus, then as the 1865 pamphlet, Transportation: The British Convict in Western Australia. In the preface to the supplement of the series, the Argus describes his articles as ‘letters’.

In 1866 Willoughby was also one of the first Hansard staff of the Victorian parliament. He became the first editor of the Melbourne Daily Telegraph in 1869, but returned to the Argus nearly a decade later, writing a weekly political column under the pseudonym, Timotheus and becoming editor in 1898. He remained as Argus editor until his death in 1908.

Representative articles

Obituary