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John Stokell Dodds

Australian politician

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 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ15458730 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir John Stokell Dodds (1848 – 23 June 1914) was an Australian politician and Chief Justice of Tasmania.

Early life

Dodds was born in Durham, England, the son of William and Annie (née Shute) Dodds. The family moved to Hobart, Tasmania, arriving in 1853. His father died soon afterwards and Dodds was educated in Hobart.

References

Sources

G. H. Crawford, 'Dodds, Sir John Stokell (1848–1914)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 4, MUP, 1972, pp. 80–81.

Serle, Percival (1949). "Dodds, John Stokell". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “John Stokell Dodds” is australian politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through John, Stokell and Dodds, 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—1848, 1914, 1853, 1972—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1848. For this dossier, John, Stokell and Dodds is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “australian politician” 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

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 Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15458730. VIAF identifies the subject as 94209269. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1848, 1914, 1853 and 1972.

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 “John Stokell Dodds”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow John Stokell Dodds primary sources, John Stokell Dodds archive and John 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 “John Stokell Dodds”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “John Stokell Dodds” 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.