Robin Black (colonial administrator)

British colonial administrator (1906–1999)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Chinese. (January 2014) Click for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Chinese Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|zh|柏立基}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Misplaced Pages:Translation.

Sir Robin BlackGCMG OBE


23rd Governor of Hong Kong
In office 23 January 1958 – 31 March 1964
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Colonial Secretary	Edgeworth Beresford David Claude Bramall Burgess Edmund Brinsley Teesdale
Preceded by	Alexander Grantham
Succeeded by	David Trench
3rd Governor of Singapore
In office 30 June 1955 – 9 December 1957
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Chief Secretary	William Goode
Chief Minister	David Marshall Lim Yew Hock
Preceded by	John Fearns Nicoll William Goode (acting)
Succeeded by	William Goode
19th Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong
In office 20 February 1952 – 30 March 1955
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Preceded by	John Fearns Nicoll
Succeeded by	Edgeworth Beresford David

Personal details
Born	Robert Brown Black (1906-06-03)3 June 1906 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	19 October 1999(1999-10-19) (aged 93) Dunedin Hospital, Reading, Berkshire, England
Spouse(s)	Anne, Lady Black
Children	2
Profession	Colonial administrator

Sir Robert Brown Black, GCMG, OBE (Chinese: 柏立基; 3 June 1906 – 19 October 1999), known as Sir Robin Black, was a British colonial administrator who served as Governor of Singapore from 1955 to 1957, and Governor of Hong Kong from 1958 to 1964.

Biography

Born in Edinburgh and educated at George Watson's College and the University of Edinburgh, he would spend three decades overseas and return to Britain in the 1960s.

Sir Robert Brown Black served in the administration of Britain's colonies for more than 30 years. Entering the colonial service, Black was assigned to Trinidad, but the remainder of his postings were in Asia.

During his posting in North Borneo Black was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps and involved in guerilla resistance against the Japanese. He was captured in 1942 and spent the remainder of World War II in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

After the war ended, he returned to the colonial service and served in North Borneo and Hong Kong before moving on to Singapore as Governor (1955–57). Subsequently, he became Governor of Hong Kong from 1958 to 1964.

Governor of Hong Kong

During his governorship, Hong Kong became increasingly prosperous. At the same time, many tens of thousands of refugees were illegally crossing the border from China every year, driven in part by widespread famine in China during the years 1958–1961. Some were stopped and sent back, but almost all of the hundreds of thousands who reached Kowloon were allowed to stay. This influx placed an enormous burden on the colonial authorities, but the needs of the refugees were met by a programme of public housing construction and public health measures.

Robert Black had been dealing with the patriotic Hong Kong Chinese in a heavy-handed way. On 18 April 1958, a raid was conducted on the library of the Pui Kiu Middle School (PKMS). The officer-in-charge of the Hong Kong Island Section of the Inspectorate of Education visited the school with five assistants. Nineteen books were confiscated and four were used as evidence of the 'mismanagement of the school' in a warning letter addressed to the school supervisor on 13 May. On the basis of these and other accusations, such as hiring of unregistered teachers and discussion of political issues in school meetings, To Pak-fui (杜伯奎), the principal of PKMS, was deported on 6 August, to Lo Wu.

Hong Kong experienced a prolonged drought of unanticipated severity during the last two years of his tenure, which led to a serious water shortage. Water rationing was imposed in May 1962 and continued through August 1964. From June 1963 until late May 1964 (when the arrival of Typhoon Viola ended the drought) the water supply was restricted to a single four-hour period every four days.

Black helped establish the Chinese University of Hong Kong by uniting several smaller institutions. He served as Chancellor of both the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong during his tenure as Governor of Hong Kong.

He was knighted (KCMG) in 1955 and promoted to GCMG in 1962.

Post-governorship

Black returned to Britain in 1964. He was active with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Royal Commonwealth Society, and served as chairman of the Clerical Medical and General Life Assurance Society in the 1970s. He died on 19 October 1999, having been predeceased some years earlier (in 1986) by his wife Anne. He was survived by their two daughters, Barbara and Kathryn.

Tributes

Robert Black College, a graduate college of the University of Hong Kong
Robert Black Health Centre in San Po Kong, Hong Kong
Sir Robert Black College of Education, now merged into the Hong Kong Institute of Education
(for his wife) The Anne Black YWCA, Kowloon
(for his wife) Anne Black Health Centre, North Point

Notes

Hong Kong socialist experimentation in the colonial era: Patriotic schools, 1946-1976, by Lau Chui-Shan, Hong Kong Baptist University, tracylau@hkbu.edu.hk
^ Keatley, Patrick (23 November 1999). "Sir Robert Black". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
Hong Kong, Report for the Year 1963. Hong Kong Government Press. 1964.

Government offices
Preceded bySir Alexander Grantham	Governor of Hong Kong 1958–1964	Succeeded bySir David Trench
Preceded bySir John Fearns Nicoll	Governor of Singapore 1955–1957	Succeeded bySir William Allmond Codrington Goode
Preceded bySir John Fearns Nicoll	Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong 1952–1954	Succeeded bySir Edgeworth Beresford David

Governors of Singapore (1819–1959)
(with italics * for the Acting)
Resident of Singapore (1819–1826)	William Farquhar Dr. John Crawfurd
Governors of the Straits Settlements (under British India) (1826–1867)	Robert Fullerton Robert Ibbetson Kenneth Murchison Sir Samuel George Bonham William John Butterworth Edmund Augustus Blundell
Governors of the Straits Settlements (under Colonial Office) (1867–1942)	Sir Orfeur Cavenagh Sir Harry St. George Ord Sir Andrew Clarke Sir William Jervois Sir Archibald Edward Harbord Anson * Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson Sir Archibald Edward Harbord Anson * Sir Frederick Aloysius Weld Sir Cecil Clementi Smith William Edward Maxwell * Sir Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell Sir James Alexander Swettenham * Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham Sir John Anderson Sir Arthur Henderson Young Sir Laurence Nunns Guillemard Sir Hugh Charles Clifford Sir John Scott * Sir Cecil Clementi Sir Andrew Caldecott * Sir Thomas Shenton Whitelegge Thomas
Japanese Mayor of Syonan (1942–1945)	Shigeo Odate Kanichi Naito
British Military Administration of the Straits Settlements (1945–1946)	Lord Louis Mountbatten Sir Thomas Shenton Whitelegge Thomas
Governors of the Crown Colony of Singapore (1946–1959)	Sir Franklin Charles Gimson Wilfred Lawson Blythe * Sir John Fearns Nicoll William Allmond Codrington Goode * Sir Robert Brown Black Sir William Allmond Codrington Goode

v t e Governors of Hong Kong
Pottinger Davis Bonham Bowring H. Robinson MacDonnell Kennedy Hennessy Bowen Des Vœux W. Robinson Blake Nathan Lugard May Stubbs Clementi Peel Caldecott Northcote Young Grantham Black Trench MacLehose Youde Wilson Patten

Categories: