1898 Scottish Athletics Championships
outdoor track and field competition

The 1898 Scottish Athletics Championships were the sixteenth national athletics championships to be held in Scotland. They were held under the auspices of the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association at Hampden Park, Glasgow, on Saturday 25 June 1898.
Background
A little more than four thousand spectators witnessed the first dead heat in a Scottish championship. Hugh Barr (Clydesdale H.) and James Auld (Ayr FC), tied in the final of the 100 yards in 10 4/5 seconds. At the second time of asking Barr led throughout and won by half a yard in the same time. Hugh Welsh (Watson's Coll. AC) had set a Scottish native record in the 1 mile in May but did not appear at the championship, reserving his effort for the international with Ireland in Dublin on 16 July where he won both the 880 yards and the 1 mile. At the championship, those two events went to William Robertson (Clydesdale H.), who had also won the 10 miles in April, and made a bold bid to hold all the distance event titles by turning out for the 4 miles. But it was too much and he was forced to retire at half way, at which point the race seemed a certainty for Jack Paterson (Watson's Coll.), the reigning cross country champion. But James Duffus, youngest of the three Duffus brothers from Arbroath, chased him hard all the way to the line and was only half a yard in arrears at the finish.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1898 Scottish Athletics Championships” is outdoor track and field competition. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Scottish, Athletics and Championships, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “outdoor track and field competition” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q122496489. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1898.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1898 Scottish Athletics Championships”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1898 Scottish Athletics Championships primary sources, 1898 Scottish Athletics Championships archive and Scottish research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1898 Scottish Athletics Championships”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1898 Scottish Athletics Championships” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.