Black Stump

The Australian expression 'black stump' is the name for an imaginary point beyond which the country is considered remote or uncivilised, an abstract marker of the limits of established settlement. The origin of the expression, especially in its evolved use as an imaginary marker in the landscape, is contested. The various claims are discussed below.

The term "Black stump" was used as land markers on a surveyors plan and was first referred to as a boundary marker in a New South Wales court case involving a land law dispute. See R v West [1831] NSWSupC 66 (12 October 1831). The case refers to vacant land at Woollomoloo where a surveyor had difficulty in ascertaining the boundaries as he could not find a plan from the days of Governor Macquairie. In the case it stated, "...and he pointed to some old stumps, which he said had been marked...defendant would not admit that the cross line marked by me on the plan was not part of his boundary...he said it ran to a black stump beyond the line, which he said had been marked...; he said the line was to run somewhere thereabouts; utmost extent claimed by defendant was the black stump of which I have spoken...made no claims beyond South Head road..."

One theory states that the expression derives from the use of black stumps in the landscape as markers when directing travellers. Other explanations relate to historical events associated with places or geographical features with names incorporating the phrase "black stump". At least three regional Australian towns claim the expression originated in their general vicinity.

The term 'black stump' is used in various formulations. The most common are:

Another use of the phrase ‘black stump’ in the Australian vernacular, which relates more to the real object than an abstract concept of landscape, is the local term for the old State Office Block in Sydney (now demolished). The high-rise building was dark-grey in colour and Sydney residents – “with the local talent for belittling anything that embarrassed them with its pretensions” – dubbed it ‘the Black Stump’.

The most prosaic explanation for the origin of ‘black stump’ derives from the general use of fire-blackened tree-stumps as markers when giving directions to travellers unfamiliar with the terrain. An early use of the phrase from the Sydney journal Bulletin (31 March 1900, p. 31) seems to lend support to this explanation: “A rigmarole of details concerning the turns and hollows, the big tree, the dog-leg fence, and the black stump”.

Robbery Under Arms, a fictionalised work by Rolf Boldrewood first published in 1888, refers to the Black Stump as an actual place "within a reasonable distance of Bathurst" and known to everybody for miles around. Boldrewood says it "had been a tremendous old Ironbark tree- nobody knew how old, but it had had its top blown off in a thunderstorm, and the carriers had lighted so many fires against the roots of it that it had been killed at last, and the sides were as black as a steamer's funnel."

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