Australian Newspaper (The Mercury)
Australian newspaper archive
History
The Mercury has served as Hobart's principal daily newspaper since 1854, making it one of Australia's oldest continuously published papers. Owned for much of the twentieth century by the Davies family before passing to the Herald and Weekly Times group, The Mercury covered Tasmanian news with particular attention to the island state's rural communities and shipping lanes.
The archive holds clippings from 1901 to 1954, an unusually long span that captures pre-aviation mystery airship reports from the early 1900s alongside the post-1947 flying saucer era. Tasmania's geographic isolation and clear southern skies generated a distinct body of sighting reports, and The Mercury recorded them with the matter-of-fact tone typical of regional Australian dailies.
Browse the Collection
Two ways to explore: by issue (covers, decade-grouped) or by article (search across the run).
63 articles catalogued, grouped by issue
