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Macbeth Duncan

rugby player (1866-1942)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ89022242
Source-derived summary

Colonel Macbeth Duncan (1 September 1866 – 2 October 1942) was a Scotland international rugby union player. He later became the 48th President of the Scottish Rugby Union.

Rugby Union career

Amateur career

Duncan was schooled at Cargilfield before moving on to Fettes College. He played for Fettesian-Lorettonians.

After Fettes, Duncan went up to Clare College, Cambridge. He played for Cambridge University and captained the side. He obtained his mathematics degree with honours before then studying law at both Aberdeen and Edinburgh universities.

He also played for Aberdeen University while studying law there.

Provincial career

He played for East of Scotland District against West of Scotland District on 26 January 1889.

International career

He was capped once for Scotland in 1888.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Macbeth Duncan” as rugby player (1866-1942). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Macbeth, Duncan and rugby.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1866, 1942, 1889, 1888—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1866-09-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Macbeth, Duncan and rugby providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Macbeth Duncan”, the useful work is to connect “rugby player (1866-1942)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

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 May 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q89022242. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1866, 1942, 1889 and 1888.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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
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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 “Macbeth Duncan”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Macbeth Duncan primary sources, Macbeth Duncan archive and Macbeth 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 “Macbeth Duncan”?
  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 Macbeth Duncan” 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.