#bct100: Local press shaped by the hand of Hills

The first editorial written by William Hills, founder of the City Times, for the very first edition, travelled the streets of the town on bicycle handlebars on September 10, 1921.

“Today, we publish the first number of the ‘Benoni City Times’ and ‘Benoni Volksblad’. It may be urged that the time is not opportune, but if everyone waited until the economic barometer indicated ‘set fair’, nothing would be started.

By the 27th edition, Hills claimed “the largest local sale of any East Rand newspaper”.
Hills arrived in South Africa from England in 1895, putting his experience on the English provincial press and the London editorial staff to use as a journalist and sub-editor at the Port Elizabeth Advertiser.

He reported in Krugersdorp at the time of the gold rush, was one of the founding reporters on the Pretoria News and served on, among others, the Eastern Province Herald, the Natal Mercury, the Transvaal Leader and the Star, all the while freelancing for the British press.

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He edited the Boksburg-based East Rand Express until 1920 when he founded Amalgamated Press and became managing editor of the Benoni City Times, Germiston Advocate (1923, which later became Germiston City News), Roodepoort-Maraisburg Advertiser, Krugersdorp Times (1934, West Rand Times), Randfontein Herald, Boksburg Advertiser (1936); and Venterspost-Westonaria Advertiser.

The Benoni City Times was its flagship and, until the early 1990s, was a sold broadsheet newspaper. It continues to bring the news to the community but is now a free tabloid newspaper delivered door-to-door and is also available online.

Hills proudly proclaimed himself the oldest working journalist in the country when he reached the age of 86 and was still actively reporting – and editor-in-chief – when he died aged 89 in 1959.

Just six weeks before his death, Amalgamated Press took over the Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark News and started publishing a newspaper to serve Kempton Park.

The running of the business turned to Hills’s eldest son, Billie Hills senior, himself a printer, a publisher and an astute businessman.

He was joined on the board by his brother Denis and sisters Mary Wright and Kathleen Gore, and later by their children.

Hills senior’s eldest son, Billy Hills junior, took up the position of financial director. A chartered accountant, he had articled at Baillie Koseff and Wheeler and worked for the Barlows Group before being invited to join the family firm. He went on to become the Amalgamated Press’s managing director and chairperson.

The father and son chaired the provincial press division of the Newspaper Press Union, with Hills junior also serving as a director on its executive.

They both chaired Capro, an independent body of media owners representing community newspapers to advertisers and advertising agencies, and were members of the National Industrial Council of the Newspaper and Printing Industry and the National Printing Apprenticeship Committee.

Hills junior was a director of the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

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Amalgamated Press was sold to the Argus Printing and Publishing Company in 1982 and was almost immediately then sold to the Caxton group.

A mainstay of Amalgamated Press through the years was Sidney Gill, its general manager and group editor.

SIDNEY GILL

Gill first joined the Benoni City Times in 1952 as a reporter.

He was a merchant seaman for some years after leaving school and before entering journalism in England.

In 1952 he and his wife and young son came to South Africa and Benoni and later that year he was promoted to news editor of the City Times.

In 1956 he left to join Sapa-Reuter where he became chief sub-editor and then moved into public relations. 

Shortly after the death of Hills, Gill rejoined the City Times as group editor.

In the last editorial Gill wrote for the newspaper before his death, he disclosed that he had lung cancer and only a few months to live.

“There has been a tendency to personify the City Times with me. That is not so, as there is a whole team of hardworking people who put out this newspaper week by week. Continue to
give them your support. This is a paper of which Benoni can be proud,” Gill wrote.