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William Beatley

fencer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ8005266 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Maurice Beatley (11 November 1923 – 22 July 2005) was a British fencer who competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics.

Biography

Beatley was educated at Bedford School and studied medicine at Cambridge, winning his blue on two occasions. He continued medical studies at the University of London. At the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Beatley competed in the individual and team sabre events.

He represented England and won a silver medal in the team sabre at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada. He also competed in the individual sabre event.

Editorial summary

“William Beatley” enters the record as fencer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what William, Beatley and fencer can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1923, 2005, 1952, 1954—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1923-11-11. Its strongest next move is a source search built around William, Beatley and fencer.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“William Beatley” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, William, Beatley and fencer provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

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 Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8005266. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1923, 2005, 1952 and 1954.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William Beatley”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Beatley primary sources, William Beatley archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William Beatley”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Beatley” 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.