The Australian Colonies Bill granting independent colonial status to Port Phillip passed through the British House of Commons on 1 August 1850. When word reached the District some ten weeks later there was great public rejoicing--even more than when [it became the] colony of Victoria ... on 1 July the following year.
...
Four days of festivities in the city followed, culminating in a huge street procession ... in which the printers and newspaper men of Melbourne played a prominent part. They were jubilant at the outcome, which the press had been urging for a decade.
Led by John Fawkner and displaying a silk banner with a portrait of the founder of printing, Johann Gutenberg, the group accompanied a horse-drawn wagon bearing a printing press that was being put to work producing a celebratory leaflet ('sheets worked off and sent flying').
[Elizabeth Morrison: Engines of Influence: Newspapers of Country Victoria, 1840-1890 (Melbourne: MUP, 2005), p.68]
Found this this morning and it just sparked my imagination. I tried to find a more suitable image of a moving press, but I don't think people did this sort of stunt very often. I have no idea what kind of printing press they were using, but the thought of printing leaflets whilst on the back of a horse-drawn wagon without losing your fingertips makes my spine tingle! Australians sure know how to party.
Cross-posted at Sarsaparilla
Postscript: thanks to the marvellous work of Russ at Sarsaparilla, for the above image of the marvellous occasion!
