John Stokell Dodds
Australian politician

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.
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.
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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.
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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.