230 Stanley Street

Southdown Press was once located at 230 Stanley Street West Melbourne. The magazine New Idea was first published in 1902 by the Fitchett Bros, its founder was Thomas Shaw Fitchett. It was subtitled A Women’s Home Journal for Australia. In 1911 the magazine was renamed as Everylady’s journal, but in 1928 the title was changed back to New Idea. Fitchett Brothers changed the name of their company to Southdown Press. Following World War II the company was acquired by Sir Keith Murdoch and became part of the News Limited, a Murdoch media consortium.

In 1991, News Limited spun off its longtime magazine house, Southdown Press, as Pacific Magazines and Printing, and sold the former Advertiser magazines, renamed Murdoch Magazines, to Matt Handbury.

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William Henry Fitchett (1841–1928)

In 1882 W. H. Fitchett became editor of the Southern Cross, a weekly religious paper; in April 1900 his son, Thomas Shaw Fitchett, printer and publisher, became manager. In 1883, when James Balfour bought the Daily Telegraph to establish a secular daily sympathetic to Christian interests, Fitchett became consulting editor until it was sold to the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd in 1892. In July that year the Australasian edition of W. T. Stead’s Review of Reviews was launched under Fitchett’s editorship; a 32-page supplement of local matter was added to the English edition. Fitchett was replaced in 1903, after having, as an Imperialist, fallen out with Stead regarding the South African War. In 1902 Thomas Shaw Fitchett published the New Idea, a women’s magazine which, in 1911, became Everylady’s Journal. Fitchett wrote occasional articles for this as well as becoming editor in 1904 of his son’s companion publication, Life.

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fitchett-william-henry-6179