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Frederick Walpole

British politician (1822-1876)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ5498984
Source-derived summary

The Hon. Frederick Walpole (18 September 1822 – 1 April 1876) was a British naval commander, author and Conservative politician.

Background

Walpole was a younger son of Horatio Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford, and Mary Fawkener, daughter of William Augustus Fawkener.

Naval and militia career

He served as an officer in the Royal Navy from 1843, attaining the rank of commander. On 18 March 1852 he was commissioned as a captain in the West Norfolk Militia, where his father was the Colonel of the regiment. Walpole was promoted to major on 17 May 1859, and commander in October 1864.

Walpole wrote several books about his naval experiences, particularly in the Pacific and Middle East, including Four Years in the Pacific (1849) and The Ansayrii, and the Assassins (1851).

Political career

Walpole was returned to Parliament as one of two Conservative Party representatives for North Norfolk in 1868, a seat he held until his death eight years later.

Family

Walpole married his second cousin, Laura Sophia Frances, daughter of Francis Walpole and Elizabeth Knight, in 1852. They had several children, including Robert Walpole, who succeeded as fifth Earl of Orford in 1894.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Frederick Walpole” is british politician (1822-1876). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Frederick, Walpole and British, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1822, 1876, 1843, 1852—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1822-09-18. For this dossier, Frederick, Walpole and British is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british politician (1822-1876)” 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

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 May 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5498984. VIAF identifies the subject as 49589276. The Library of Congress control number is n90655544. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1822, 1876, 1843 and 1852.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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
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 “Frederick Walpole”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Frederick Walpole primary sources, Frederick Walpole archive and Frederick 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 “Frederick Walpole”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Frederick Walpole” 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.