The Marlborough Express is a newspaper serving the Marlborough area of New Zealand. Its headquarters are in Blenheim and has been published there since 1866.

The Marlborough Express was set up by the printer, journalist and editor Samuel Johnson and his brother Thomas. They arrived in Blenheim in April 1866 and intended to set up weekly that served all of Marlborough Province, in opposition to the parochial papers serving Blenheim (Wairau Record) and Picton (Marlborough Press) already.^[1][2] Johnson sold the newspaper to Smith Furness and James Boudy in 1879.

Smith James Furness (1852–1921) also purchased the Marlborough Times (founded by John Tait in 1879) in 1895 and ran it as a morning paper until 1905.^[3]

It remained in the Furness family until 1998, when it was acquired by Independent Newspapers Limited (INL).^[2] Fairfax New Zealand, now Stuff Ltd, bought the INL mastheads in 2003.^[4][5]

The current editor is Ian Allen, who was appointed in 2018.^[6]

The Marlborough Express was published from 1866 as a weekly. It became a daily in 1880 and took over its rivals, the Marlborough Times in 1895, and the Marlborough Press in 1948.^[2]

The paper made headlines nationally in 2013 when it published a cartoon by Al Nisbet about the Government's introduction of food in schools that was widely criticised as "racist".^[7][8] The editor of the paper defended the cartoon's publication, saying it was meant to generate discussion.^[9] Race relations commissioner Susan Devoy called it "out of line".^[10]

The Marlborough Express was one of the first digitisation projects of The Preserving Local History and Educational Trust (Te Pupuri I Nga Hitori o Te Rohe Trust), with the charity preserving issues from 1921-1943.^[11]