COPIES of a Huddersfield newspaper dating from the 1800s have been found in a New Zealand schoolhouse.
Pages from the Huddersfield Chronicle dating back to 1863 were found on the walls of the wooden building in Auckland, South Island.
The tumble-down schoolhouse, which was built in 1859, is being renovated as a home by Brent Withers, who transported it by tractor and trailer to his home town, Waitakere City, on the outskirts of Auckland.
News of his discovery has reached Huddersfield because his mother, Patricia, is the penfriend of Holmfirth woman Alicia Mellor.
Mrs Mellor, 61, has been writing to Mrs Withers, of Waitakere, since the pair were introduced via a school scheme in the 1950s.
Mrs Mellor said: "I went to Nabbs School at Holmfirth. They told us we could start writing to people in other countries and I chose New Zealand.
"I have been to visit her and she's been to visit me and we now keep in touch by email. It is a small world when you think they are on the other side of the world and have found the Huddersfield Chronicle."
The newspaper was a Conservative-leaning rival to the Examiner when it was in business between 1850 and 1916.
Mrs Withers said she can only assume the schoolmaster who once occupied the house - which is the second oldest in Waitakere - was from the Huddersfield area.
She added: "We wondered if the school teacher had come from the North and had brought them out with him or had managed to get copies from new immigrants.
"They are not that easy to read, but one piece is dated 1863. They say it is a small world - and it was true even in those days."
