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Story: Advertising

New Zealand Company poster

Image
New Zealand Company poster

This poster is a reprint of one originally issued in 1839 for John Crawford, a New Zealand Company agent in Glasgow. Such posters were an important way that potential migrants were told about the possibility of free or assisted travel to the new land. In this case single women were offered a free passage. The invention of mechanised printing presses in the 1800s was a crucial invention for the large-scale printing of hand-bill and poster advertising.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: Eph-C-IMMIGRATION-1839-01

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, Advertising – Colonial newspapers, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/ephemera/22394/new-zealand-company-poster (accessed 11 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 4 March 2010.