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James Larcombe

Labor Party politician from Queensland, Australia.

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 revisionApr 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ15998991 ↗
Source-derived summary

James Larcombe (1884–1957) was a Labor politician from Queensland, Australia. He was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.

Early life

James Larcombe was born in Rockhampton, Queensland on 25 April 1884. His father, also named James Larcombe, was a butcher, and his mother was Mary (née Lee). He was educated at the Jenkins private school in Rockhampton. As a young man, he worked as a butcher with his father and was active in the local labor movement.

Politics

At the 1912 election, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Queensland to represent the newly created electoral district of Keppel. While the MLA for Keppel, he was a minister without portfolio from 9 September 1919 to 22 October 1919. Then he was appointed as Secretary for Public Works from 22 October 1919 to 7 April 1920. Then he was Secretary for Railways (7 April 1920 to 21 May 1929).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “James Larcombe” is labor Party politician from Queensland, Australia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through James, Larcombe and Labor, 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—1884, 1957, 1912, 1919—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1884-04-25. For this dossier, James, Larcombe and Labor is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “labor Party politician from Queensland, Australia” 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 Apr 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15998991. VIAF identifies the subject as 272360904. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1884, 1957, 1912 and 1919.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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 “James Larcombe”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow James Larcombe primary sources, James Larcombe archive and James 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 “James Larcombe”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “James Larcombe” 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.