Tyler Redway
A GRANT from the State Library of South Australia has allowed the very first South-East (SE) Kingston Leader editions to be permanently digitised and archived onto Trove.
The archive on Trove now covers the Kingston Leader’s editions which ran from its founding year of 1962 up until 1976.
The update to the Leader’s digital archive came after an application was made to The Libraries Board by the National Trust of South Australia Kingston SE Branch last year, which also promised a $5000 contribution by the branch to match the grant.
The application stated the Leader played a vital role in recording and preserving the social and economic history of Kingston and surrounds.
The South-East Kingston Leader originally succeeded its predecessor, The Kingston Weekly, which was founded in 1946 and later closed in 1951 due to rising costs and a lack of community support.
On November 21 2001, the Leader was rebranded as the Coastal Leader and would include a broader coverage of the Kingston SE, Robe and Coorong regions.
The Coastal Leader later ceased publication in December 2021 and has not continued to publish content under the masthead since.
The update to the Leader’s digital archive came after an application was made to The Libraries Board by the National Trust of South Australia Kingston SE Branch last year, which also promised a $5000 contribution by the branch to match the grant.
Kingston National Trust chair Maureen Andrews said the archive would be an “incredibly valuable resource” in the Kingston SE community for years to come.
Ms Andrews said it would also play a vital part in the Kingston SE Branch’s 60th anniversary celebrations later in the year.
“It’s an incredibly valuable resource for local historians and people looking not just for family history, but social and economic history within the regions,” Ms Andrews said.
“The town is very thrilled how this has been digitally preserved and it really is about the access because now you can get to it from your own home computer.
“We’re hoping it will generate a renewed interest in the history of Kingston and we’re hoping we can base a few other projects around it.”
Ms Andrews said one of the projects referred to how it would be a good idea to help long-time residents of the town share their stories and old memorabilia now Kingston’s history was being showcased in more detail.
“I would like to see people come forward with their stories and memorabilia about Kingston, which would give us a chance to record what is being held out there in private hands,” she said.
“Maybe we could do some recorded interviews with some of the elderly citizens to capture their memories before it’s too late.”
Ms Andrews said the Kingston branch missed the first round of grants from The Libraries Board but later managed to catch the second round.
She said the Kingston branch hoped to take advantage of the upcoming third round of grants to extend the archive of the Kingston SE Leader further.
“They just put out applications for the third and final one, which we have also put out an application for so we don’t know whether we will get it or not,” she said.
“We would be pretty lucky to have the whole 25 years done but we might only get another 14 years out of it.”
The National Trust of South Australia Kingston SE Branch’s 60th anniversary will be celebrated on September 21 and 22 and will include multiple workshops on how to access Trove as well as additional online resources.
