Cambridge Times

In the early decades of the 20th century, this region saw the development of several newspaper chains in which an individual or a syndicate owned a number of independent newspapers.

This trend was reflected in the work of Walter Baulk, who has been described as an astute local newspaperman and a keen advertising salesman. His idea was to develop a chain of local weekly newspapers that would continue to be edited locally but which would all be produced at a centrally located printing plant.

Mr. Baulk was persuaded by the Preston Board of Trade to locate that plant in Preston, and in 1947 a limited company known as Baulk Publishers Ltd. was formed. In 1949 it became a public company.

It was at this time that a group of local businessmen became interested in the development of a local weekly that would be printed on Baulk's presses.

That newspaper was the Preston Times, which rolled off the line for the first time on Oct. 28, 1948.

Baulk Publishers Ltd. continued to publish the Times until 1969, when the chain was sold to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record Ltd.

This company grew to become Jemcom Inc., which published the Cambridge Times through its subsidiary, the Fairway Group. Jemco and its companies, including the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, was purchased by Southam Inc. in January 1990 and was later acquired by Conrad Black’s Hollinger Inc., which sold the Record and its affiliated companies to the Toronto Sun Publishing Co. in 1998.

The Times was later sold to CanWest Global as part of a deal involving a number of Sun Publishing Co. regional papers. CanWest Global then sold the Times and a number of other small market daily and weekly newspapers to Osprey Media Group. The deal closed in February 2003.

Later that same year, the Times was purchased by TorStar Corporation.

Hespeler Herald

Through Baulk Publishers Ltd., newspaper publishing in Preston was closely related to that in Hespeler. In 1946, Walter Baulk purchased the Hespeler Herald as an important link in the newly formed chain. With Mr. Baulk’s death in 1955, management of the Herald passed on to Richard Duff. Upon Mr. Duff’s death in 1965 much of the work of producing the Herald was transferred to Preston.

The Hespeler Herald, however, did not begin with Walter Baulk. The paper was established in 1897 under the direction of Oscar Eby. Like the Preston paper, the Herald was a weekly that offered a review of local happenings.

Like many businessmen of his day, Eby was a staunch Tory. However, he was first a businessman, and he did not let politics become involved in the operation of the newspaper. Eby recognized that to survive, a small weekly in a small town required the financial backing of both sides of the political fence and so he was careful to take no political stands that would antagonize either side.

In 1918, Eby sold the Herald to George Hudson, an ex-teacher and then publisher and editor of a weekly paper in Beamsville. Upon Hudson’s death, his son Edgar (Ted) Hudson took over the paper, which he operated until he was called up to military service during the Second World War.

In 1946, the Herald was purchased by Walter Baulk to become one of his chain of weeklies. The Herald continued as a separate publication until April 29, 1970 after which it merged with one of Mr. Baulk's other weeklies to form the Preston-Times-Herald. This paper became the Cambridge Times in January 1973.

— Courtesy Jim Quantrell, City of Cambridge Archives