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Peter Snape

British politician (born 1942)

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 revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ2078392
Source-derived summary

Peter Charles Snape, Baron Snape (12 February 1942 – 13 August 2026) was a British Labour Party politician. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for West Bromwich East from February 1974 until he stood down in the 2001 election. Snape was the chairman of his hometown football club, Stockport County, as well as being a major shareholder in the club at the time of his chairmanship. He became vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Speedway Racing in July 2015.

Education

Snape was educated at a Roman Catholic primary school in Stockport, followed by St Bede's College, Manchester and Dialstone School in Bramhall.

Career

A railwayman by profession, Snape once lived at Greenwood Gardens, Bredbury, in the Borough of Stockport and was the Bredbury and Romiley Urban District councillor representing the Bredbury South ward. He was elected as Labour Member of Parliament for West Bromwich East in 1974, after which he moved to live in Buglawton in Congleton, Cheshire. He retained links with the Bredbury area, serving on multiple occasions as a director of the Stockport County Football Club. He held a number of government posts.

Snape was the member who formally proposed Michael Martin to be the new speaker in 2000.

Editorial summary

“Peter Snape” enters the record as british politician (born 1942). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Peter, Snape and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1942, 2026, 1974, 2001—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1942-02-12, 1942-02—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Peter, Snape and British.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Peter Snape” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Peter, Snape and British provides the most credible route into that argument.

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 Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2078392. VIAF identifies the subject as 141803112. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 2026, 1974 and 2001.

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
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 “Peter Snape”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Peter Snape primary sources, Peter Snape archive and Peter 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 “Peter Snape”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Peter Snape” 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.