Black, JOHN

Black, JOHN, journalist, was born near Duns, Berwickshire, in 1783. Left an orphan ere he had reached his twelfth year, Black, after filling posts in the offices of a Duns writer and an Edinburgh accountant, in 1810 went up to London, and was engaged as a parliamentary reporter for the Morning Chronicle, of which from 1817 he assumed the editorship. Under him the paper was celebrated for its independence and fearless advocacy of progress—a fearlessness which led to his duel with Roebuck in 1835. Charles Dickens was one of his reporters and contributors, and James Mill helped him with almost daily advice. John Stuart Mill has described him as 'the first journalist who carried criticism and the spirit of reform into the details of English institutions.' He retired from the editorship in 1843; an annuity of £150 a year was bought for him by his friends; and, until his death on 15th June 1855, he lived in a pleasant cottage at Snodland, near Maidstone. Black was author of a Life of Tasso (1810), and the translator of works from the German, French, and Italian.