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Jim Rutherford (rugby league)

Australian rugby league footballer

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 revisionFeb 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ18379090 ↗
Source-derived summary

James Keith Rutherford (7 January 1908 – 8 October 1982) was an Australian rugby league footballer who played in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

Playing career

Originally from Tumbulgum, New South Wales, Rutherford played five seasons with St. George between 1933-1937.

Rutherford scored the match-winning after-the-bell try for St George in their 1933 semi-final against Eastern Suburbs. Rutherford captained the club during their end-of-season tour of New Zealand that year.

Rutherford played second row in the 1933 Grand Final. He also represented New South Wales on four occasions in 1933, and played from New South Wales City Firsts in 1934.

Rutherford was captain-coach of Young in 1939 and Dubbo in 1940.

He returned to Sydney in 1941, playing one season for Western Suburbs. He enlisted in the AIF in 1942.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Jim Rutherford (rugby league)” as australian rugby league footballer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rutherford, rugby and league.

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—1908, 1982, 1933, 1937—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1913. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Rutherford, rugby and league providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Jim Rutherford (rugby league)”, the useful work is to connect “australian rugby league footballer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18379090. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1982, 1933 and 1937.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. 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 “Jim Rutherford (rugby league)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Jim Rutherford (rugby league) primary sources, Jim Rutherford (rugby league) archive and Rutherford 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 “Jim Rutherford (rugby league)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Jim Rutherford (rugby league)” 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.