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Billy Johnson (rugby league)

Australian rugby league footballer

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 revisionDec 30, 2024
Entity authorityQ60760510 ↗
Source-derived summary

Billy (Bunny) Johnson also known as Bill Johnson was an Australian professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1920s and 1930s. He played for Balmain and North Sydney as a second rower. His younger brother Alfie Johnson also played for Balmain.

Playing career

Johnson made his first grade debut in 1929 for North Sydney. In 1932, Johnson made the switch to Balmain. Johnson played for Balmain in the 1936 grand final defeat against Eastern Suburbs.

In 1939, Johnson was a member of the Balmain team which claimed the premiership that year defeating South Sydney 33–4 in the grand final at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Johnson played two more seasons for Balmain before retiring at the end of the 1941.

Editorial summary

“Billy Johnson (rugby league)” enters the record as australian rugby league footballer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Billy, Johnson and rugby can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1929, 1932, 1936, 1939—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1911-01-11. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Billy, Johnson and rugby.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Billy Johnson (rugby league)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Billy, Johnson and rugby provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 30, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q60760510. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1932, 1936 and 1939.

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 “Billy Johnson (rugby league)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Billy Johnson (rugby league) primary sources, Billy Johnson (rugby league) archive and Billy 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 “Billy Johnson (rugby league)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Billy Johnson (rugby league)” 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.