Robert Black

Who is Robert Black?

Robert Sheriff Black was Mayor of Dunedin from 1929 to 1933.

Black was born in Liverpool in 1868 and migrated to Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. He came to New Zealand in 1897, where he entered the trade of exporting rabbit skins. In 1924, he married Helen McKenzie Black, who was 30 years his junior.

He first stood for the Dunedin mayoralty in 1919, but was beaten by William Begg. He won election in 1929 and served for two terms until 1933, when he was beaten by Edwin Thomas Cox. He died in Dunedin on 4 January 1939.