Ronald Holloway, who died in 2003 at the age of 94, was
a well-known Auckland printer and publisher who had an
association with the University going back to the 1920s.
Holloway was one of the last links with the literary
generation that included R.A.K. Mason, Robin Hyde, A.R.D.
Fairburn, John Mulgan, Frank Sargeson, Roderick
Finlayson and Allen Curnow; as a printer he was involved
with all of these writers in the 1930s.
Ron was born in Cheltenham in England in 1909 and
eventually settled in New Zealand in 1922. Even as a
schoolboy his interest in printing, medieval manuscripts
and heraldry asserted itself, through the influence of a
teacher. In New Zealand, after attending Mt Albert
Grammar School he won a Lizzie Rathbone scholarship
which paid for three years tuition at Auckland
University College from 1927-29. He worked briefly in
Dunedin before returning to Auckland.
In 1931, Ron saw an advertisement for a printer at the
University and thereby made the acquaintance of Robert
Lowry, a precocious student who had established a
printery in the basement of the old Arts building on
campus. Lowry, with Holloway’s assistance,
enthusiastically set about modernising and improving the
typographical standards of university publications such
as Kiwi and Phoenix; the latter began its
brief (4 issues) but spectacular flight in 1932.
Holloway worked on both journals and also on Allen
Curnow’s first book of poems, Valley of Decision
(1933).
Later Holloway and Lowry went into partnership as the
Unicorn Press in Kitchener Street which became a meeting
place for Auckland’s literati. Among books published by
Unicorn were R.A.K. Mason’s notable sequence No New
Thing (1934), Frank Sargeson’s first book
Conversation With My Uncle and other sketches (1936)
and D’Arcy Cresswell’s Lyttelton Harbour (1936).
Eventually, the partnership with Lowry ended, and Ron
and his wife Kay (they were married in 1937) established
the Griffin Press where one of their first publications
was Roderick Finlayson’s Brown Man’s Burden
(1938), followed later by four other books by Finlayson.
As well as printing and publishing on his own account
Ron worked as a printer/typographer for Milne & Choyce
and the Auckland Star among other firms.
The Griffin Press was eventually moved to their home at
Panmure, where the Holloways raised seven children, five
of whom survive their parents (Kay died in 2001). Kay
Holloway’s memoir Meet me at The Press (1994)
records much of the history of the Griffin Press.
The Griffin Press was eventually moved to their home at
Panmure, where the Holloways raised seven children, five
of whom survive their parents (Kay died in 2001). Kay
Holloway’s memoir Meet me at The Press (1994) records
much of the history of the Griffin Press.
In 1993 Ron and Kay Holloway gifted to the University
books, printing equipment and archival materials out of
which the Holloway Press was started by Alan Loney and
Peter Simpson at the Tamaki Campus. Since 2001 Holloway
Press books have been expertly designed, printed and
bound by Tara McLeod. Among authors printed by the
Holloway Press are Allen Curnow, Robin Hyde, Helen Shaw,
Robert Creeley, Wystan Curnow, Maurice Duggan, Leo
Bensemann, Colin McCahon, Kendrick Smithyman and Len
Lye. The recent publication, R.A.K. Mason’s Four
Short Stories 1931-35, was launched, coincidentally,
on the day of Ron Holloway’s funeral at St Patrick’s
Cathedral, Auckland Ron apparently always took great
pleasure in the copies of books he received from the
Press which bears his name and honours his notable
contribution to typography and printing in Auckland.
First printed as an obituary notice in University
News, the University of Auckland
|