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R O N A L D   H O L L O W A Y   1 9 0 9  -  2 0 0 3
 

By Peter Simpson


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
 

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