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Henry Crewe Boutflower

British writer and minister

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ5719948
Source-derived summary

Henry Crewe Boutflower (25 October 1796 – 4 June 1863) was an English Anglican minister and Hulsean essayist.

Boutflower was the son of John Boutflower, surgeon, of Salford, and cousin of Samuel Peach Boutflower. He was educated at the Manchester Grammar School, and in 1815 entered St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1816, he gained the Hulsean theological prize. His Hulsean prize essay, which was published in 1817 at Cambridge, was entitled 'The Doctrine of the Atonement agreeable to Reason.' The degrees of B. A. and M. A. were conferred on him in 1819 and 1822, respectively, and he was ordained in 1821, when he became curate at Elmdon near Birmingham, having previously acted as assistant-master at the Manchester Grammar School.

Career

In 1823, Boutflower was elected to the headmastership of the Bury Grammar School, Lancashire, and in 1832 was presented to the perpetual curacy of St. John's Church in that town. He was highly respected there as an able and conscientious clergyman and a good preacher. The rectory of Elmdon, where he first exercised his ministry, was offered to and accepted by him in 1857, and he held it until his death.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Henry Crewe Boutflower” is british writer and minister. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Henry, Crewe and Boutflower, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1796, 1863, 1815, 1816—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1796-10-25. For this dossier, Henry, Crewe and Boutflower is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british writer and minister” 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

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 Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5719948. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1796, 1863, 1815 and 1816.

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.

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  • 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 “Henry Crewe Boutflower”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Henry Crewe Boutflower primary sources, Henry Crewe Boutflower archive and Henry 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

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Henry Crewe Boutflower” 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.