William B. Rotch
Former top executive at N.H.’s Cabinet Press Inc. newspaper group
William B. Rotch of Peterborough, N.H., former editor and publisher of the Milford, N.H.-based Cabinet Press Inc. newspaper company that his family owned, died Feb. 1 at RiverMead Retirement Community in Peterborough. He was 100, and formerly was a longtime resident of Milford, N.H.
After graduating from Dartmouth College, Rotch began his career as editor and publisher of The Cabinet of Milford and the then-Wilton (N.H.) Journal, which had been owned by his family for five generations. After a Navy stint in World War II, Rotch returned to Milford to resume his position at the Cabinet.
He also wrote extensively for the newspaper, covering news and writing an editorial column 52 times a year for almost 50 years. He also wrote a weekly column of personal reflections – first titled Letter from the Editor and later titled Letter from the Publisher – until 2008, when he was 92.
Rotch was a former president of the New Hampshire Press Association. He also co-founded and was president of the New England Weekly Press Association, later named the New England Press Association and now part of the New England Newspaper and Press Association. He was inducted into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2001.
In October 1956, Rotch was invited by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission to visit the state. The purpose of the visit was “to give representatives of the northern ‘grassroots’ press a true picture of Mississippi …,” he wrote. The resulting stories, published soon after in the Cabinet, foreshadowed the civil rights movement that would emerge in full force a few years later.
Rotch was an active member of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors. In 1989, he received the group’s Eugene Cervi Award, which recognizes newspaper editors who embody the conviction that “good journalism begets good government.”
In 2007, The Telegraph of Nashua, N.H., which purchased Cabinet Press in 2013, honored Rotch, with Daniel Webster and other influential New Hampshire residents, in a story titled “175: The people who made a difference.”
He leaves four children, Peter, Elizabeth, John, and Martha, who with her husband, Frank, bought Cabinet Press in 1994; 12 grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren.