People Australia

Walter Scott Targett (1849-1918) journalist, newspaper proprietor, hotelier, parliamentarian and proof-reader

Birth: 3 April 1849 at Rotherhithe, Surrey, England, son of David Scott Target (1824-1874), a barge-builder and shipwright, later hotelier, and Eliza Isobella, née Giles (1819-1906). Marriage: 16 September 1875 at Colac, Victoria, to Emily Chapman (1857-1941). They had six daughters and four sons. Death: 9 September 1918 at Kogarah, Sydney, New South Wales. Religion: Anglican. 

• Arrived in Sydney with his parents and siblings, aboard the Vimiera on 30 October 1854. His family moved to the North Coast of NSW along the Manning River about 1857. His father farmed, built punts for the government, and became licensee of the Ferry Inn at Tinonee, near Wingham.
• Walter reputedly spent two years in New Zealand. By 1875 he was living in Victoria, and became music critic on the Age newspaper in Melbourne.
• Moving to Lithgow, NSW, he established a newspaper, the Mercury, in 1878 and was its the first editor. He was prominent in the local community, as secretary to the School of Arts, judge at the horse races and a member of the Druids’ Lodge.
• An unsuccessful candidate for seat of Hartley in the New South Legislative Assembly in November 1880 he won the seat in December 1882. He was an active member promoting the interests of his constituents. He particularly urged — without success — relocating the railway line to avoid the Lithgow Zig Zag. Targett served for two terms until 26 January 1887, when he resigned to spend more time in his business.
• In the early 1880s the Mercury was owned by Targett, Lawson and Gilbert until 1886? Targett moved for a time to Port Pirie, South Australia, where he bought the Port Pirie Standard, and was president of the Wharf Laborers’ Union.
• He then shifted to Broken Hill and in 1888 opened the city’s first daily newspaper, the Argus, of which he was managing editor. The paper ceased publication after about ten months. Target then relocated to Latrobe, Tasmania, where he was refused a hotel licence but was said to have opened another newspaper.
• Returning to NSW, in a subsequently varied career he was reputedly engineer of bridge near Appin-Campbelltown. In 1897, an hotelkeeper at Campbelltown, he was bankrupted. He lived near Narrellan, later Penshurst and then Hurstville.
• In 1907 he was editor and part proprietor of the Home and Farm. In Sydney, that year he toured the western districts as an organiser for the Liquor Trades Defence Union opposing prohibition. By 1918 he was a proof-reader for NSW Government Printing Office.
• He was a past master in the Masonic craft.
• Press reports at his death described him as having “an exceptionally fine physique, being 6 feet [183 cm] in height, and weighing about 17 stone [108 kilos]”.
• He died from injuries sustained when, attempting to board a steam tram in motion, he fell and rolled under its wheels and his leg was severed.
• Targett’s son Harold Scott (‘Bill’) (1877-1947), a notable journalist, served with the NSE Imperial Bushmen in the South African War in 1900-1901 and was invalided home. He was press correspondent with the Australian Expeditionary Force to German New Guinea in 1914.

Sources
C. N. Connolly, Biographical Register of the New South Wales Parliament 1856-1901 (ANU Press, Canberra, 1983), p 326; Lithgow Mercury, 17 August 1978.