The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Pugh, Theophilus Parsons
Pugh, Theophilus Parsons, was born in Nov. 1831, at Turk's Island (Caicos group), and educated at Old Kingswood School, near Bristol, and at Wesley College, Taunton. He joined the staff of the Southern Times at Weymouth in 1852, after a short apprenticeship to the printing business, and was afterwards attached to the Mirror at Salisbury and the Herald at Swansea. In 1855 he emigrated to Australia, arriving in Moreton Bay in June of that year. Mr. Pugh acted as local correspondent for Sir Henry Parkes' paper, the Empire of Sydney, and was editor of the Moreton Bay Free Press from Oct. 1855 to Oct. 1859. When Mr. T. B. Stephens bought the Moreton Bay Courier, then a bi-weekly paper, in 1859, Mr. Pugh accepted the editorship, and brought it out as a tri-weekly in November, and as a daily in May 1861. After leaving what is now the Brisbane Courier in 1863, Mr. Pugh went into various journalistic ventures, becoming editor of the Brisbane Telegraph, then newly started, in Oct. 1872. This post he resigned in Nov. 1873. Pugh's "Moreton Bay (Sheet) Almanack for 1858" appeared at the end of 1857, followed by the first book almanack for 1859 in 1858. These developed into the now well-known publication, Pugh's "Queensland Almanack" in 1860, which has been published continuously ever since, with constantly increasing usefulness and popularity. Mr. Pugh became secretary of the committee formed for the purpose of obtaining the separation of Queensland from New South Wales, on the retirement of Mr. William Wilkes in 1857, until the purpose of the movement was achieved in 1859. On Dec. 10th, 1859, Mr. Pugh issued the first Queensland Government Gazette, and continued to print and publish it until the appointment of Mr. Belbridge as the first Government printer. In May 1863 he was elected to represent North Brisbane in the second parliament, was re-elected for the city in June 1867, became chairman of committees in September, and was again returned in 1868, but almost immediately afterwards retired from parliamentary life. Mr. Pugh was appointed police magistrate at Goondiwindi in 1874, for Rockhampton in 1876, for Warwick in 1882, and for Bundaburg, where he is still stationed, in June 1887.