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Jack Butterworth, Baron Butterworth

British lawyer and peer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ6111505 ↗
Source-derived summary

John Blackstocke Butterworth, Baron Butterworth, (13 March 1918 – 19 June 2003) was a British lawyer and the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick. He was the chair of the committee that published the Butterworth Report on social work in 1972.

Butterworth graduated in jurisprudence from Oxford University. On the eve of the Second World War he enlisted in the Royal Artillery and spent much of the war in Scotland, protecting strategic targets from air attack.

Background and family

He qualified in 1946 as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, and then became a law tutor at New College, Oxford. He had a reputation as an outstanding teacher and he was made an Honorary Bencher of Lincoln's Inn in 1953. He was quick-witted and shrewd, which accounts for his appointment as bursar of New College for the last seven years of his time at Oxford.

Butterworth married his wife Doris in 1948 and they had one son and two daughters, including Anna Walker, who became a senior civil servant of some distinction.

University of Warwick

In 1963, he became the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick. Warwick was one of the handful of new universities created in the wake of the Robbins Report (1962).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Jack Butterworth, Baron Butterworth” as british lawyer and peer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1918, 2003, 1972, 1946—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1918-03-13. The account is most persuasive where Jack, Butterworth and Baron can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british lawyer and peer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

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 Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6111505. VIAF identifies the subject as 286404256. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2003, 1972 and 1946.

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

This entry incorporates text from “Jack Butterworth, Baron Butterworth” 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.