Hermann David Black: M. Ec. (Syd), F.C.I.S., F.A.S.A., Hon. D. LITT (N'csle, NSW), KT., A.C. Doctor of the University (U.N.E.), (h.c.), Doctor of the University (Syd), (honoris causa) 1904-1990

Abstract

On 28 February of this year there died in Sydney Sir Hermann Black, Chancellor of the University of Sydney from 1970, at the age of 85. A Memorial Service for him was held in the University's Great Hall on March 23. Hermann Black, besides being the doyen of Australasian University Chancellors, was both a founder figure to the New England University College and an Honorary Doctor (D.U.) of the University of New England. Hermann David Black's first name came from his maternal grandfather and great-grandfather, the latter, Hermann Puttmann, an early socialist and friend of Marx and Engels and himself a critic of Bismark's agricultural policy. Later the elder Puttmann emigrated to Australia, where his descendant (of Scottish and German stock) would attend Fort Street High School, at which time he met on the football field another able scholarship boy, one Robert Bowden Madgwick, whose whole life would become closely associated with Black's, until his own death in 1979. After winning many school prizes and showing remarkable ability in debating, Black, on a Department of Education scholarship, proceeded to the University of Sydney as an economics student. He graduated in 1927, with first-class honours and the University Medal, both of which he shared with Madgwick. After spending several years in school teaching, he returned to his old university in 1933 as a lecturer in economics, and in so doing followed his friends R.B. Madgwick who had done the like in 1929, and also H.C. ('Nugget') Coombs. From this time on, both Black and Madgwick shared numerous university classes and adult education activities, the twosome being affectionately known as 'Black Magic'. Both of them also did series of country extension lectures along the North Coast and to the North West, the which endeavours were very much intellectual forerunners to, and catalysts for, the campaign for the New England University College (opened in 1938).