Niel Black

Niel Black (26 August 1804 – 15 May 1880)

He purchased a 17,612 hectare run near Lake Terang in the Western District which he named 'Glenormiston' in 1840.

Black’s personal papers are held by the State Library of Victoria. His diaries and many letters provide insights into many aspects of life in the Western regions of Victoria in the nineteenth century. They include some revealing commentary on what he thought some of his fellow settlers believed was a legitimate approach to maintaining possession of their land holdings in the face of native attacks on livestock and sometimes shepherds. However he was not convinced that the settlers' claim to self defence was necessarily valid, and he considered some of them "scarcely less savage" than their native assailants in this regard. His journal entry for 9 December 1839, reads:The best way [to procure a run, in their opinion] is to go outside and take up a new run, provided the conscience of the party is sufficiently seared to enable him without remorse to slaughter natives right and left. It is universally and distinctly understood that the chances are very small indeed of a person taking up a new run being able to maintain possession of his place and property without having recourse to such means — sometimes by wholesale — but I do not think that this is by any means common, and it its only outside that they are ever called upon to act in so brutal a manner, it, however, seems to be little thought of here as it is only done in defense of self or property … I believe, however, that great numbers of the poor creatures have wantonly fallen victims to settlers scarcely less savage though more enlightened than themselves, and that two thirds of them does not care a single straw about taking the life of a native, provided they are not taken up by the Protectors.

Black died in Noorat, Victoria on 15 May 1880 and left £179,208, a huge amount of money at the time. Black, Maggie. "The Battle for the Lands: glimpses from a squatter's correspondence - No 88 December 2011". latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 17 August 2020.

Books

MacKellar, Maggie (2008). "Strangers in a Foreign Land – The Journal of Neil Black and other voices from Western District." Carlton, Vic.: The Miegunyah Press. Black, Maggie (2016). Up came a squatter : Niel Black of Glenormiston, 1839–1880. Sydney, NSW: NewSouth Publishing. .

Websites

Ward, Russel. "Black, Niel (1804–1880)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Melbourne University Press. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 3 May 2013 – via National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. "Black, Niel". re-member: a database of all Victorian MPs since 1851. Parliament of Victoria. Archived from the original on 7 July 2012. Retrieved 3 May 2013. "VHD". vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 31 July 2020. "Glenormiston College". www.glenormiston.com.au. Retrieved 31 July 2020.