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Peter Collingwood

Australian/British television actor

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ7173339 ↗
Source-derived summary

Peter Trevor Collingwood (6 May 1920 – 23 September 2016) was an English-born actor who appeared in theatre roles, films, miniseries and serials from 1938 to 2003 in his native England and Australia. Collingwood was known for his portrayal of judges, military men and upper-crust befuddled types. He was also a playwright.

Early life

Collingwood was born in Kent(some sources give, Farnham, Surrey), England on 6 May 1920. He initially studied at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. During the Second World War, he also served in the British Navy including on the Greek submarine Matrozos as liaison officer, but was discharged due to eyesight problems.

He enrolled in the Embassy School of Acting at the Embassy Theatre, London, in 1937. His first professional acting job was in Wang Shifu's Chinese play The Western Chamber at London's Torch Theatre in 1938.

Career

Theatre

After the war, Collingwood joined Amersham Repertory Theatre, followed by the Young Vic Company, and a number of other companies. After marrying his wife, they moved to Perth, Scotland where he worked for the Perth Repertory Company.

Editorial summary

“Peter Collingwood” enters the record as australian/British television actor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Peter, Collingwood and Australian can confirm, complicate or overturn.

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—1920, 2016, 1938, 2003—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1920-05-06. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Peter, Collingwood and Australian.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Peter Collingwood” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Peter, Collingwood and Australian provides the most credible route into that argument.

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 Feb 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7173339. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1920, 2016, 1938 and 2003.

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
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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 “Peter Collingwood”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Peter Collingwood primary sources, Peter Collingwood archive and Peter 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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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Peter Collingwood” 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.