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George Potts

politician, died 1863

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ26735320
Source-derived summary

George Potts (1807 – 20 September 1863) was a British Liberal and Conservative politician.

Potts was the son of William Potts and Mary (née Bayly), daughter of William Bayly. He married three times, including to his cousin Ellen ńee Reed, daughter of James Reed, in 1847. He had at least two sons including Dr Walter Jeffery Potts (1837–1898), who married Julia Beevor and had at least one son, Charles Herbert Beevor-Potts (1864–1953), a leading magistrate in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, Canada.

Potts first stood for election at Barnstaple at the 1857 general election as a Peelite Conservative—or Liberal Conservative—but was unsuccessful. He again stood for the seat at the next general election in 1859, joining the Liberal Party after its formation, and held the seat until his death in 1863.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “George Potts” is politician, died 1863. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through George, Potts and politician, 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—1807, 1863, 1847, 1837—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1807. For this dossier, George, Potts and politician is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “politician, died 1863” 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 Apr 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q26735320. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1807, 1863, 1847 and 1837.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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
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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 “George Potts”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow George Potts primary sources, George Potts archive and George 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 “George Potts”?
  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 George Potts” 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.