John Nicholson Black
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John Nicholson Black {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRSE}} (28 June 1922 – 6 October 2018)[http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U7693 BLACK, John Nicholson, Who's Who 2012, A & C Black, 2012; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2011; accessed 30 May 2012] was Principal of Bedford College, London from 1971-81.{{Cite book|author=Contributing authors - edited by J Mordaunt Crook|title=Bedford College - Memories of 150 years|year=2001|publisher=RHC University of London|location=Royal Holloway College, Englefield Green, Surrey}}
Education
John Nicholson Black was educated at Rugby School and Exeter College, Oxford.
Career
He did war service with the RAF from 1942–46 and then obtained a BA in agriculture at Exeter College, Oxford in 1949 followed by an MA and DPhil both in 1952. From 1952-63 he was a lecturer, senior lecturer and Reader at the University of Adelaide Waite Research Institute where he was awarded a DSc in 1965. Black was also an accomplished musician and while residing in Adelaide he established the Burnside Symphony Orchestra, then comprising both professional and amateur musicians.{{Cite news|title=Dr. John Black has cured a musical headache|last=Horner|first=John|date=22 June 1957|work=The Advertiser}} He led the orchestra from 1957-1963.{{Cite news|title=Triumphant finale by conductor|last=Horner|first=John|date=6 November 1963|work=The Advertiser}}
He was Professor of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Edinburgh from 1963–71 before becoming Principal of Bedford College.
Bedford came under considerable financial pressure in the 1970s from cuts in grants and the limitations of the college site in Regent's Park. The college was slow in responding to the challenge and Black's efforts to persuade the college to a merger especially with Royal Holloway College 'fell on stony ground'. Black came from one of the largest universities in the United Kingdom and: "...was well aware that a college of only eleven hundred students with grant/fee income to match could not be expected to support as many as twenty academic departments in a wide spread of disciplines, especially at a time when public funding was seriously reduced." The inevitable merger came under the next principal (Dorothy Wedderburn)'s leadership.
Personal life
He married, first, in 1952 Mary Denise Webb (died 1966) with whom he had a daughter and a son. He married, second, in 1967 Wendy Marjorie Waterston with whom he has two sons. {{citation needed|date=September 2014}}
He died on 6 October 2018 at the age of 96.[http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thetimes-uk/obituary.aspx?n=john-nicholson-black&pid=190447292 John Nicholson Black]
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|title=Principal
Bedford College, London
|years = 1971-81
|before=Elizabeth Millicent Chilver
|after=Dorothy Wedderburn
}}
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Category:People educated at Rugby School
Category:Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
Category:Academic staff of the University of Adelaide
Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh