CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Bill McLaughlin

Australian rugby union player and union officer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 6, 2025
Entity authorityQ4910135 ↗
Source-derived summary

Reginald Edward Millen "Bill" McLaughlin MBE (1914–1990) was an Australian Rugby Union player and President of the Australian Rugby Union. He represented for the Wallabies twice and was later assistant manager and coach of the national side. He attended Newington College (1929–1930).

He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1976 New Year Honours for services to sport.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Bill McLaughlin” as australian rugby union player and union officer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bill, McLaughlin and Australian.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1914, 1990, 1929, 1930—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1914-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Bill, McLaughlin and Australian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bill McLaughlin”, the useful work is to connect “australian rugby union player and union officer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4910135. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914, 1990, 1929 and 1930.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bill McLaughlin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bill McLaughlin primary sources, Bill McLaughlin archive and Bill 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 “Bill McLaughlin”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bill McLaughlin” 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.