to the design of Godfrey & Spowers The newspaper was originally owned by William Kerr, who was also Melbourne's town clerk from 1851 to 1856 and had been a journalist at the
Sydney Gazette before moving to Melbourne in 1839 to work on
John Fawkner's newspaper, the
Port Phillip Patriot. The first edition was published on 2 June 1846. The paper soon became known for its scurrilous abuse and sarcasm, and by 1853, after he had lost a series of libel lawsuits, Kerr was forced to sell the paper's ownership to avoid financial ruin. The paper was then published by
Edward Wilson. By 1855, it had a daily circulation of 13,000.
Lauchlan Mackinnon was a pastoralist, politician and newspaper proprietor. Mackinnon one of the most enterprising of the pioneer colonists in
Victoria and one of the proprietors of The Argus from 1852 until his death in 1888. In October 1881, an afternoon edition was launched, the
Evening Mail, edited by
Henry Short, but this was a failure, and ceased publication in August 1882. In 1883, newspaper editor and owner
Richard Twopeny (1857–1919) regarded
The Argus as "the best daily paper published out of England". The paper become a stablemate to the weekly
The Australasian, which became the
Australasian Post in 1946. During the Depression, in 1933, it launched the
Melbourne Evening Star in competition with
The Herald newspaper of the
Herald & Weekly Times, but ended the venture in 1936 due to poor circulation figures. The company's newspaper operations experienced severe financial losses from 1939 onwards, which would continue through the 1940s and the 1950s due to economic turmoil, increased costs of newsprint, and cut-throat competition for newspaper circulation in Melbourne. In June 1949,
The Argus was acquired by the
London based
Daily Mirror newspaper group and, on 28 July 1952, it became the first newspaper in the world to publish colour photographs in a daily paper. The paper also had interests in radio and, from 1956, the new medium of television, being part of the consortium General Telecasters Victoria (GTV) and its television station
GTV-9 (now part of the
Nine Network). On 19 January 1957, after 110 years, seven months and 17 days, the final edition of
The Argus was published. The paper was discontinued and sold to the Herald and Weekly Times group (HWT), which undertook to re-employ
Argus staff and continue publication of selected features, and also made an allocation of shares to the UK owners. The company's other print and broadcasting operations were unaffected. ==The Argus masthead banner==