Douglas Nicholls

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Douglas Nicholls bigraphy, stories - Australian rules footballer and coach

Douglas Nicholls : biography

9 December 1906 – 4 June 1988

Sir Douglas Ralph "Doug" Nicholls, KCVO, OBE (9 December 19064 June 1988) was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneering campaigner for reconciliation.

Nicholls was the first Aboriginal person to be knighted and also the first appointed to vice-regal office, serving as Governor of South Australia from 1 December 1976 until his resignation on 30 April 1977 due to poor health.

Early life

Douglas Nicholls was born in 1906 on the Cummeragunja Reserve in New South Wales.Clark, Mavis Thorpe (1956). Pastor Doug: The Story of Sir Douglas Nicholls Aboriginal Leader (Rev. ed.). Melbourne: Lansdowne Press. SBN 8018-0017-8. Schooling at the mission was provided to Grade 3 standard and strict religious principles were emphasised. When he was eight, he saw his 16-year-old sister Hilda forcibly taken from his family by the police and taken to the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls.

Recognition

  • 1957 – appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).
  • 1962 – chosen by the Father’s Day Council of Australia as Victoria’s Father of the Year for "outstanding leadership in youth and welfare work and for the inspired example he set the community in his unfailing efforts to further the cause of the Australian Aborigine".
  • 1968 – promoted to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
  • 1968 – met Pope Paul VI at the Ecumenical Conference held in Melbourne.
  • 1970 – among Victorians invited guests to greet Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to Australia.
  • 1972 – became the first Aboriginal person to be knighted (Knight Bachelor) and he and his wife Gladys travelled to London to receive that honour.
  • 1973 – appointed King of Moomba.Craig Bellamy, Gordon Chisholm, Hilary Eriksen (17 Feb 2006) Moomba: A festival for the people.: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/rsrc/PDFs/Moomba/History%20of%20Moomba.pdf PDF pp 17–22 also p 8 for photo
  • 1976 – appointed the 28th Governor of South Australia, the first Aboriginal person appointed to vice-regal office.
  • 1977 – appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO).
  • 1991 – the Canberra suburb of Nicholls was named after him
  • the new chapel of Northern Community Church of Christ in Preston is named after him.
  • 2006 – to commemorate the centenary of his birth, a statue of Nicholls, one-and-a-half times life size, was approved for the Parliament Gardens, beside the Parliament of Victoria;, submission by Assets and Services Division, Council of Melbourne, 16 May 2006 (accessed 14 January 2008) it was officially opened in December 2007, City of Melbourne (accessed 14 January 2008) and was the first statue of an Aboriginal erected in Victoria.

Employment

At 13 he worked with his uncle as a tar boy and general hand on sheep stations, and he lived with the shearers. He worked hard and had a cheerful disposition. This annoyed one of the shearers so much that he challenged Nicholls to a fight, with the loser to hand over one week’s pay (30 shillings – $3). After six rounds the shearer who challenged him conceded defeat.

Sportsman

Nicholls played Australian rules football. He was recruited by the Carlton Football Club in the VFL but did not play because of the racist attitude of the other players. From there he played for the struggling Northcote Football Club for five years and was a member of their 1929 premiership team.

In 1932 Nicholls joined the Fitzroy Football Club. Anticipating a reprise of the racism he had experienced at Carlton, he sat by himself in the change rooms at Brunswick Street but was welcomed and befriended by Haydn Bunton, snr. In 1934 he was third in the Brownlow Medal count. In 1935, he was the first Aboriginal player to be selected to play for the Victorian interstate team. Knee injuries forced him to retire in 1939 and he was back at Northcote as a non-playing coach in 1940.