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William Frame

Welsh architect

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ8009291
Source-derived summary

William Frame was an English architect.

Life and works

Frame was born at Melksham, Wiltshire in 1848. Training as an architect, he was articled firstly to William Smith of Trowbridge, he then became assistant to John Prichard of Llandaff. In 1868, he entered the office of William Burges and worked with Burges at Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch. Following Burges's death in 1881, Frame remained in the service of John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute and continued Burges's work at both castles, as well as designing the Grade I listed Pierhead Building in the docks built by Bute's father.

Frame also worked on Bute's Scottish home, Mount Stuart House, on the Isle of Bute, and his home in Falkland, Fife, the House of Falkland. He undertook the building of the Animal Wall, in the grounds of Cardiff Castle, for which Burges had got no further than drawing the designs. Burges's favourite sculptor, Thomas Nicholls, executed the carvings. During these years he won the Royal Academy's gold medal and the Soane Medallion. Later in his life, Frame also produced a small number of very well regarded grandfather clocks in the village of Larkhall, Scotland.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “William Frame” as welsh architect. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around William, Frame and Welsh.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1848, 1868, 1881—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1848. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with William, Frame and Welsh providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “William Frame”, the useful work is to connect “welsh architect” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

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 Mar 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8009291. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1848, 1868 and 1881.

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 “William Frame”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Frame primary sources, William Frame archive and William 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 “William Frame”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from William Frame” 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.