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Henry McPetrie

Australian rules footballer

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 revisionNov 15, 2025
Entity authorityQ16066897 ↗
Source-derived summary

Henry James Watson McPetrie (14 March 1877 – 1 November 1937) was an Australian rules footballer who played for the St Kilda Football Club in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) and the Carlton Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

Family

The son of the Master mariner, Captain Alexander McPetrie (1840-1892), — who was in command of the iron-hulled clipper ship, Ben Voirlich, when it set the record of 64 days between Plymouth and Port Phillip in January 1875 — and Elizabeth Simpson Petrie (1850-1915), née Mathieson, Henry James Watson McPetrie was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 14 March 1877.

One of his brothers, William Martin McPetrie (1880–1951) played cricket for Victoria.

Football

St Kilda (VFA)

Recruited from Richmond City, he played in 3 games (1 goal) for St Kilda in the 1895 VFA competition.

West Beach

He played for the West Beach Football Club, in the St Kilda District, in 1896.

Carlton (VFL)

Recruited from West Beach, he played in 5 games for Carlton, in 1897, the first year of the VFL competition, and played against Fitzroy, at the Brunswick Street Oval, on 8 May 1897, Carlton's first game in the VFL.

Death

He died (suddenly) at Castlemaine, Victoria on 1 November 1937.

Notes

References

Cooper, J.B. (1931), The History of St. Kilda: From its First Settlement to a City and After: 1840 to 1930 (Volume II), St. Kilda, Victoria: St. Kilda City Council.

Editorial summary

“Henry McPetrie” enters the record as australian rules footballer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Henry, McPetrie and Australian 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—1877, 1937, 1840, 1892—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1877-03-14. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Henry, McPetrie and Australian.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

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

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16066897. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1937, 1840 and 1892.

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 “Henry McPetrie”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Henry McPetrie primary sources, Henry McPetrie archive and Henry 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 “Henry McPetrie”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Henry McPetrie” 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.