MR. BLACK was born in the parish of Keir, Dumfriesshire, and educated in a school supported by Mr. Gladstone of Capenoch, and in the parish school of Keir. Later, at Penpont, he was a schoolfellow of Joseph Thomson, the African explorer. As parliamentary agent of the Scottish Permissive Bill and Temperance Association he is well known in the lobby of the House of Commons. It was upon his representations on behalf of the Association that first Mr. Bonar Law, and afterwards Sir John Stirling Maxwell were induced to introduce a Bill for the ten o'clock closing of public houses in the previously exempted towns and cities in Scotland, the provisions of which were ultimately embodied in the Government's Licensing Act of 1903. He was pursuer in the Whiteinch Licensing Case - Black versus Tennent, and as a director of the Glasgow Citizens' Vigilance Association since its beginning, has taken an active part in securing the enforcement of the licensing laws. Also, as vice-chairman of the Scottish National Sabbath School Union he took an active interest in the movement for instituting the special courts now in existence for trying juvenile offenders.
    Mr. Black is an elder in Whiteinch U.F. Church, superintendent of the Mission Sabbath School, and chairman of the Home Mission Association. He is on the Commission of the Peace for Lanarkshire. In 1888 he married Isabella, daughter of the late James Gray, merchant, Newton-Stewart. His favourite recreation is bowling.

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