John Ballance (third from left) stands with staff outside the Evening Herald office in Campbell Place, Whanganui, around 1870. Ballance had been the manager and editor of the Herald since 1867. He was elected to the colonial Parliament in 1875, going on to become leader of the Liberal Party and then premier from 1891 until his death in 1893. A number of other notable politicians used newspapers as a springboard into politics. Julius Vogel founded the Otago Daily Times in 1861 and was its editor until 1868. He moved to Auckland in 1869 to take up the editorship of the Daily Southern Cross. From 1863 Vogel was involved in colonial and provincial politics, becoming premier and colonial treasurer with different administrations. Another prominent politician, William Pember Reeves, was the former editor of the Lyttelton Times. He became minister of labour in the Liberal government of the early 1890s.