CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

HMCS William Hall

Royal Canadian Navy offshore patrol vessel

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

HMCS William Hall is the fourth Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessel for the Royal Canadian Navy. The class was derived from the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship project as part of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy and is primarily designed for the patrol and support of Canada's Arctic regions. Named after Quartermaster William Nelson Edward Hall, who was the first African Canadian to receive the Victoria Cross. He received the medal for his actions in the 1857 Siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “HMCS William Hall” is royal Canadian Navy offshore patrol vessel. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through HMCS, William and Hall, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1857—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, HMCS, William and Hall is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “royal Canadian Navy offshore patrol vessel” 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

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1857.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “HMCS William Hall”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow HMCS William Hall primary sources, HMCS William Hall archive and HMCS 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 “HMCS William Hall”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “HMCS William Hall” 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.