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Baron Rea

British noble title

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 12, 2023
Entity authorityQ4862734
Source-derived summary

Baron Rea, of Eskdale in the County of Cumberland, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1937 for the businessman and Liberal politician Sir Walter Rea, 1st Baronet, who had earlier represented Scarborough, Bradford North and Dewsbury in the House of Commons. He had already been created a Baronet, of Eskdale in the County of Cumberland, in 1935. He was succeeded by his eldest son, the second Baron. During the Second World War he served as personal staff officer to Brigadier Colin Gubbins, the Head of SOE, a key British intelligence and guerrilla operations agency. Lord Rea served as Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords from 1955 to 1967. His daughter, the Right Hon. Ann Felicity Rea, married SOE veteran Malcolm Munthe in 1945. His nephew, the third Baron, who succeeded in 1981, was a physician. He was one of the ninety elected hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, and sat on the Labour benches.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Baron Rea” as british noble title. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1937, 1935, 1955, 1967—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Baron, British and noble can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as british noble title. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 12, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q4862734. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1935, 1955 and 1967.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Baron Rea”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Baron Rea primary sources, Baron Rea archive and Baron 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 “Baron Rea”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Baron Rea” 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.