![Cecil and Effie Brown at the Examiner office in 1982. Behind them is a picture of William Brown with Cecil (far right) and Raymond Terrace businessmen outside the Examiner's King Street office in the early 1900s.
Cecil and Effie Brown at the Examiner office in 1982. Behind them is a picture of William Brown with Cecil (far right) and Raymond Terrace businessmen outside the Examiner's King Street office in the early 1900s.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/172369331/61afd948-8cad-482a-bbd5-2833bdc533fc.jpg/r0_15_970_560_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
For more than 100 years the Port Stephens Examiner was a family affair, starting with original owner William Brown and passing through to his sons Cecil and Ray.
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While William Brown was famous for his 61 years as editor, his sons also spent most of their working lives assisting and then running the paper.
Cecil was first, joining the family business at the age of 19 in 1915, then his younger brother Ray, after he finished school in 1926.
Cecil married in 1927 and went into poultry farming but returned to a part-time role during World War II.
In the late 1940s he returned to the business full-time and then helped Ray to run the newspaper after William died in 1954.
In those days the Examiner was published on a Thursday and assembled and printed onsite at the William Street office.
Reflecting on William Brown's legacy earlier in the year, Cecil's daughter Margaret Morris Jolly remembers visiting the Raymond Terrace office after school.
"Cecil and Raymond worked with grandfather in the business with the aid of extra help but it was just them for a long time until there was a need to employ local people," she said.
"I think I was about eight and I'd go in there from school of an afternoon and there'd always be threepence up on the type desk for my sister and I to go over to the Corner Cafe - that was the sort of man he (my grandfather) was."
![Linotype operator at Queensland Times in Ipswich in 1975. Picture by Queensland Goverment
Linotype operator at Queensland Times in Ipswich in 1975. Picture by Queensland Goverment](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/172369331/a6f58e76-f826-485c-a7dc-a2ba5a80f2fb.jpg/r0_0_1200_675_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
When Ray was editor and Cecil co-publisher there were five people working at the paper. Ray was the linotype (a typesetting machine) operator and Cecil the compositor.
Ray and Cecil Campbell were both reporters with Cecil covering the shire council meetings. while Ray travelled the region, covering everything from a fete at Swan Bay to a meeting at Williamtown.
The Examiner office was a meeting place for local farmers and business people.
Ray died suddenly in 1966 at the age of 58 and Cecil and his wife Effie ran the paper before selling eight months later to Harold Campbell.
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