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Harry Bland

footballer (1898-?)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 23, 2025
Entity authorityQ5667387
Source-derived summary

William Henry Bland (12 January 1898 – 27 July 1960) was an English professional footballer who made 130 appearances in the Football League playing for Plymouth Argyle and Cardiff City. He played as a defender.

Bland was born in Leeds. He served in the Royal Navy and signed for Plymouth Argyle after being posted to the city. He made his debut in the Football League a month short of his 30th birthday and replaced the ageing Moses Russell at right back. He made 128 appearances for the club in all competitions, the last of which came in March 1934. The following season played a few games for Cardiff City, however the side suffered several heavy defeats in a disappointing season, and Bland was one of numerous players released in a bid to improve the club's fortunes. Bland died in Bristol on 27 July 1960, at the age of 62.

Editorial summary

“Harry Bland” enters the record as footballer (1898-?). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harry, Bland and footballer can confirm, complicate or overturn.

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—1898, 1960, 1934—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1898-01-12. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Harry, Bland and footballer.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Harry Bland” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Harry, Bland and footballer provides the most credible route into that argument.

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 Aug 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5667387. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1898, 1960 and 1934.

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 “Harry Bland”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Harry Bland primary sources, Harry Bland archive and Harry 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 “Harry Bland”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Harry Bland” 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.