Robert Denis Collison Black:THE ACADEMIC economist Robert Denis Collison Black, who has died aged 86, spent the major part of his career at Queen's University Belfast, but was also a fellow emeritus of Trinity College Dublin.
Prof Black was born in Dublin in 1922. He was a precocious student, entering Trinity College at the age of 15, taking a first-class moderatorship in economics and politics and then successfully completing a PhD in economics by the age of 21.
He left Dublin for Belfast in 1945, taking up a position as assistant lecturer in economics at Queen's University. He remained there, aside from some sabbatical travels, until he retired in 1985.
He was head of the department of economics at Queen's for 23 years from 1962 to 1985. He was also dean of faculty (1967-1970) and pro-vice-chancellor (1971-75).
For his academic work, he was elected a member of the British Academy, a fellow of the Royal Irish Academy and an honorary fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He also received an honorary doctorate from Queen's University.
Prof Black's doctoral thesis was on Mountifort Longfield, the first holder of the Whately chair of economics in Trinity College, while his specialist interest was in the history of economic thought. He had a lifelong interest in the subject and in the contributions of Irish economists to economic issues.
He was awarded a Rockefeller foundation grant for research in the US in 1950-51. There he met and discussed economics with leading figures such as Friedrich von Hayek, George Stigler and Milton Friedman, all future Nobel laureates.
His greatest academic influence was Jacob Viner of Princeton University, who stimulated him to write his most celebrated work Economic Thought and the Irish Question 1817-1870, published by Cambridge University Press in 1960.
In the late 1950s, Alf Mac Lochlainn in the National Library showed him the papers of JE Cairnes, another holder of the Whately chair in Trinity. Therein he came across Cairnes's correspondences with Stanley Jevons. These inspired him to start research on Jevons, leading to him compiling and editing The Papers and Correspondence of William Stanley Jevons (1972-1981) in seven volumes, a remarkable piece of academic scholarship.
Prof Black authored over 70 publications in economics, among which his editing of A Catalogue of Pamphlets on Economic Subjects 1750-1900 in Irish Libraries (1969) will remain an important source of bibliographical interest on the vast holdings of economics works in Irish libraries.
He believed it was important to take a relativist position with respect to economic ideas, maintaining they were products of time and place. He also had a wide range of administrative responsibilities in Queen's at a difficult period in its history. He acquired a reputation for fairness among his colleagues.
Prof Black is survived by his wife Frances, their son Terence and their daughter Rosemary.
Robert Denis Collison (Bob) Black: born June 11th, 1922; died December 7th, 2008