Sent to Thomas H. Black, Esq., married Hannah Gilmore in Belfast in 1848. The couple emigrated to St Kilda, Victoria, then an aristocratic suburb of gold-rush era Melbourne. Hannah died in St Kilda in 1856, as confirmed by cemetery records. By 1857, Black had withdrawn from the colony and returned to his native County Derry. He subsequently married Mary McIlroy in the Ballymena area of County Antrim. By 1860, he had established his residence at Rock Cottage, Coleraine, where a daughter was born on December 27, 1860.

P&O steamship Behar operated on routes including the UK-India-Australia lines during the late 1850s gold rush era.