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Edmund Sheppard

British-born Australian judge (1826-1882)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 30, 2025
Entity authorityQ16063172
Source-derived summary

Edmund Sheppard (1 November 1826 – 22 December 1882) was a Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland.

Early life

Sheppard was the fourth son of Samuel Sheppard, of Taunton, Somerset, England, and his wife, Harriett Deane (née Allen). Edmund was born in Taunton and educated there and in London where he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in June 1857.

Career in Australia

Sheppard went to Sydney, New South Wales, shortly after being called to the bar. Sheppard married, firstly, in July 1860, Mary Grace, daughter of the late C. E. Murray, of Sydney, who died in June 1869. He practised at the bar in Sydney, and in 1866 was appointed District Court Judge of Queensland. Judge Sheppard married, secondly, in December 1871, Adela, daughter of the late E. J. Murray, solicitor, of London. He became Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland on 17 July 1874; and died in London on 22 December 1882 having taken leave of absence earlier in the year due to ill-health.

Legacy

Sheppard's second son William Fleetwood Sheppard, became a mathematician.

The court complex in Townsville, opened in 1975, was named the Edmund Sheppard Building in recognition of his service as the first Northern Judge of the court.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Edmund Sheppard” as british-born Australian judge (1826-1882). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Edmund, Sheppard and British-born.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1826, 1882, 1857, 1860—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1826-11-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Edmund, Sheppard and British-born providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Edmund Sheppard”, the useful work is to connect “british-born Australian judge (1826-1882)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16063172. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1882, 1857 and 1860.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. 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.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Edmund Sheppard” 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.