Douglas Nicholls

Sir Douglas Ralph Nicholls (9 December 1906 – 4 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 born on 9 December 1906 on the Cummeragunja Reserve in New South Wales.

He was the youngest of five children born to Herbert Nicholls and Florence Atkinson.

His paternal grandfather was Aaron Atkinson, who was the brother of William Cooper.

Schooling at Nicholls's 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 where she was trained to become a domestic servant.

At 13 Nicholls 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.

Nicholls played Australian rules football.

After playing in the Goulburn Valley for Tongala, Nicholls tried out for VFL clubs and before the 1927 season.

He played some seconds matches for Carlton but did not play a senior game.

He competed in gift races around Victoria during the athletics seasons, and in 1928 he won both the Nyah and Warracknabeal Gifts.

Following this, the race organisers paid him an appearance fee, board and expenses to enter races.

He was the inaugural chairman of the National Aboriginal Sports Foundation.

Playing football provided employment during the winter.

To earn a living during the rest of the year, he boxed with Jimmy Sharman's Boxing Troupe, a travelling sideshow in which Sharman offered his fighters for challenge against all comers.

During World War II, Nicholls was an adept boomerang thrower, teaching that skill to some members of the United States military.

There is a photograph depicting this in the Australian War Memorial archives.

He also organised and captained Aboriginal teams in football matches used for patriotic fundraisers during the war, many of which were played against Northcote.

William Cooper, an uncle to Nicholls, mentored him in leadership, eventually placing him as the secretary of the Australian Aborigines' League.

It was a founding principle of the League that Aboriginal Affairs was made a Federal matter, which would require a change in the Constitution of Australia, which could only be effected by a referendum.

Nicholls subsequently joined the Northcote Football Club in the VFA, and became a regular in the Northcote team by 1929.

He made his name as an energetic and speedy wingman, capable of spectacular feats, and came to be regarded as the best wingman in the VFA at the time.

At 5'2", he was one of the shortest players in the game. He was a member of Northcote's 1929 premiership team, and finished third in the Recorder Cup voting in 1931, his final season with Northcote.

In 1932, Nicholls joined the VFL's Fitzroy Football Club and in 1935, he was the first Aboriginal player to be selected to play for the Victorian interstate team, ultimately playing four interstate games.

As early as February 1935 Cooper, Nicholls and others were lobbying Members of Parliament, such as Thomas Paterson, the Commonwealth minister for the interior on this issue.

Nicholls won Fitzroy's Reserves best and fairest award in 1937.

During his career, particularly in the early years, Nicholls was subjected to onfield taunts or ostracised by his team-mates due to his colour.

Nevertheless, he became a popular player among spectators; and, upon joining Fitzroy, when he was initially sitting by himself in the change rooms (due to this ostracism), he was befriended by Haydn Bunton, Sr. who ensured he was made welcome within the team.

Like his close relative Lynch Cooper, Nicholls was also a very capable sprinter.

He played a total of six seasons for Fitzroy, before returning to Northcote in 1938.

It gained national attention when Nicholls, leveraging his profile as a nationally famous athlete, participated in the Day of Mourning protest for Aborigines held in Sydney on 26 January 1938, where Indigenous leaders from across the country made the demand to change the Constitution.

The proposed resolution was: "WE, representing THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA, assembled in conference at the Australian Hall, Sydney, on the 26th day of January, 1938, this being the 150th Anniversary of the Whiteman's seizure of our country, HEREBY MAKE PROTEST against the callous treatment of our people by the whitemen during the past 150 years, AND WE APPEAL to the Australian nation of today to make new laws for the education and care of Aborigines, we ask for a new policy which will raise our people TO FULL CITIZEN STATUS and EQUALITY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY."Doug Nicholls rose to support the resolution on behalf of the Victorian Aborigines League that day, saying: "On behalf of Victorian Aborigines I want to say that we support this resolution in every way. The public does not realise what our people have suffered for 150 years. Aboriginal girls have been sent to Aboriginal Reserves and have not been given any opportunity to improve themselves.

Knee injuries forced him to retire in 1939.

He returned to Northcote as non-playing coach in 1947.

Nicholls was the first Aboriginal Australian to be knighted when he was appointed Knight Bachelor in 1972 (he was subsequently appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1977).

He was also the first – and as of 2016 the only – Indigenous Australian to be 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.