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=New South Wales Government Printing Office=

History
The New South Wales Government Printing Office, Sydney, was the state government agency responsible for meeting the printing needs of the New South Wales State Government and the New South Wales Parliament. It was established in 1840 by the New South Wales colonial government, primarily to maintain control over the efficiency and security of the printing of bills, acts, and the Government Gazette.

Throughout its history, the New South Wales Government Printing Office printed, bound, and distributed a large variety of government materials, including bills, ballot papers, electoral roll, forms, licences, lottery tickets, postal and duty stamps, annual reports, official stationery, school examinations, transport tickets, lottery tickets, and school exercise books. The printing office operated out of various buildings in Sydney's central business district and the inner-city suburb of Ultimo, Sydney, until mid-1989, when the Government Printing Office was abolished by the New South Wales Liberal Government, under Premier Nick Greiner.

Origins
The history of government printing in the colony of New South Wales began prior to the creation of the Government Printing Office. There is some disagreement as to who was the first official printer for the government in New South Wales. Some claim it was George Hughes, others suggest it was a man of a very similar name, George Howe.

Although a wooden screw-press was brought to Australia by Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788, for several years the press remained unused because of the lack of skilled printers in the colony. A man named George Hughes is recorded as printing at least 200 government orders from 1795 to 1800, when he left the colony. Hughes was followed by George Howe, the man who was often hailed as being the “father of print” in the New South Wales Colony. Howe, who was transported to Sydney in 1800 on the Royal Admiral II for the crime of shoplifting, was responsible for printing the first official newspaper for the Colonial Government, the Gazette, later known as the Government Gazette. Howe drowned at Fort Macquarie in 1829, but his son, Robert Howe, continued the printing of the Gazette and other Government orders. Robert Howe published the first volume of Acts for the Colony in 1827, as well as publishing the Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser. Although the latter publication contained government notices, it was essentially run privately, by Howe. To add further complication, other printers such as Horatio Wills and Richard Mansfield also conducted government printing after George Howe’s death. This situation essentially meant that from 1829 to 1840, there was no official Government Printer.

As more printers arrived in Port Jackson, Governor Gipps put out tenders for printers to produce work for the government – the Government Gazette, parliamentary proceedings known as Hansard, orders and acts. Gipps found that the main difficulty was that these printers did not prioritise work for the government, and often failed to meet set deadlines. He complained that the printers did not “feel themselves obliged to fulfil their engagements,” – and because there were so few printers, competition did not compel them to work faster.

On 21 November 1840 the Colonial Government announced that it intended to establish an official Government Printing Office, and in 1841, Gipps wrote to the Home Office in London, complaining that private printing firms in Sydney were tardy and unreliable in printing government work. Gipps reported that the previous year he had established a Government-run printing establishment that was "under the control and exclusive orders of the Government." The printer John Kitchen was appointed the first official Government Printer in December 1840; he had already been running a printing house in Sydney for some years. Kitchen’s main tasks were to print the Government Gazette, as well as bills and incidental government papers. A Government Printing Office building was established at Bent and Phillip streets in Sydney city.

19th century history
The New South Wales Government