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Walter Brodie

New Zealand politician and botanical collector (1811-1884)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 13, 2025
Entity authorityQ7964382 ↗
Source-derived summary

Walter Brodie (1811 – 11 September 1884) was a New Zealand politician in Auckland, on both provincial and national level.

Biography

Brodie was born in 1811 in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, as the sixth of twelve children. His mother was Anna Brodie (1779–1864), the daughter of The Times founder John Walter. His father was Revd Dr Alexander Brodie DD (1773–1828). His parents had married in 1802, and his father had become the Reverend at St Mary's, Eastbourne, in 1809. His grandfather died in 1812, the year after Brodie was born, and his mother inherited 2/16ths of the shares in The Times; the same proportion went to her sister Mary Carden. In 1821, the two sisters and their respective husbands signed an affidavit that clarified that the shares were held by the daughters of The Times founder, and were not the property shared with their husbands. His father died in 1828.

Brodie emigrated to the colony in the early 1840s. He returned to England in 1844 and published a book on his experience of New Zealand colonial life titled Remarks on the Past and Present State of New Zealand.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Walter Brodie” as new Zealand politician and botanical collector (1811-1884). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Walter, Brodie and Zealand.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1811, 1884, 1779, 1864—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1811-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Walter, Brodie and Zealand providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Walter Brodie”, the useful work is to connect “new Zealand politician and botanical collector (1811-1884)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

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 Apr 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7964382. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1811, 1884, 1779 and 1864.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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
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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 “Walter Brodie”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Walter Brodie primary sources, Walter Brodie archive and Walter 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

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  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 “Walter Brodie” 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.