CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Bret Hutchinson

Australian rules 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 revisionApr 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ4961939 ↗
Source-derived summary

Bret Hutchinson (born 6 March 1964) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with the Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and the Subiaco Football Club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL).

Zoned to Melbourne, Hutchinson played both under-19 and reserves football with the club between 1982 and 1984, playing in premiership sides in both 1983 (under-19s) and 1984 (reserves). He played his sole senior game for the game in round 15 of the 1985 VFL season, against Footscray at the Western Oval, recording 12 disposals. He was unable to play the following week after his face was splashed with battery acid from his car, causing chemical burns. Hutchinson did not play another senior game for the club, although he won the reserves best and fairest award in 1985, and transferred to the Frankston Football Club in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) for the 1986 season.

In 1987, Hutchinson again transferred clubs, moving to Subiaco in the WAFL (based in Perth, Western Australia), and won the club's Best First Year Player award. As a result of his form in the WAFL over the following seasons, including playing in Subiaco's premiership side in 1988, he was drafted by the West Coast Eagles in the VFL with the 38th pick in the 1990 Pre-season Draft. Hutchinson did not play a senior game for West Coast, and left Subiaco at the end of the 1993 season, having played 105 games and kicked 44 goals for the club.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bret Hutchinson” as australian rules footballer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 1982, 1984, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1964-03-06. The account is most persuasive where Bret, Hutchinson and Australian can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as australian rules footballer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4961939. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1982, 1984 and 1983.

Critical limits

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

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 “Bret Hutchinson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bret Hutchinson primary sources, Bret Hutchinson archive and Bret 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 “Bret Hutchinson”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bret Hutchinson” 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.