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Clifton Webb (politician)

New Zealand politician (1889-1962)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ958022 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir Thomas Clifton Webb (8 March 1889 – 6 February 1962) was a New Zealand politician and diplomat.

Early life

He was born in Te Kōpuru, near Dargaville, in 1889. Thomas Webb was his father. He received his education at Te Kōpuru School, Auckland Grammar School, and the studied at Auckland University College. He practised law in Dargaville. He was in the army from 1917 to 1919, then returned to his practice in Dargaville and was a borough councillor there from 1921 to 1923. He moved to Auckland in 1927 and established a new law firm there.

Member of Parliament

He sat in Parliament from 1943 until 1954: first as an Independent National MP for Kaipara (1943–1946) and then as the National Party MP for Rodney (1946–1954). A key aide to party leader Sidney Holland, he was appointed to Attorney-General upon National gaining power in 1949. As Minister of Justice, he was responsible for drafting the legislation that resulted in the abolition of the Legislative Council.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Clifton Webb (politician)” is new Zealand politician (1889-1962). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Clifton, Webb and politician, not as a finished interpretation.

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—1889, 1962, 1917, 1919—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1889-03-08. For this dossier, Clifton, Webb and politician is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “new Zealand politician (1889-1962)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

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, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q958022. VIAF identifies the subject as 13611982. The Library of Congress control number is n80081100. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1962, 1917 and 1919.

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
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 “Clifton Webb (politician)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Clifton Webb (politician) primary sources, Clifton Webb (politician) archive and Clifton 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 “Clifton Webb (politician)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Clifton Webb (politician)” 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.