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Eric Milroy

Scottish rugby union player

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 revisionMay 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ5387108 ↗
Source-derived summary

Eric "Puss" MacLeod Milroy (4 December 1887 – 18 July 1916) was a rugby union player who represented Scotland and Watsonians. He was capped twelve times for Scotland between 1910 and 1914, his first appearance coming as a surprise replacement for the Scottish captain, George Cunningham. He was selected for the 1910 British Isles tour to South Africa after other players were forced to withdraw. Due to illness, he only participated in three matches, and did not take part in any of the tests against South Africa. In 1914, he captained Scotland against Ireland, and against England in the last international match before the outbreak of the First World War.

At the start of the war, Milroy was commissioned in the Black Watch and was killed in action in Delville Wood, France, during the Battle of the Somme. He was one of 31 Scottish rugby internationals to be killed in action. Milroy is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing dead of the Somme.

Early life

Eric Milroy was born in Edinburgh on 4 December 1887, the second son of Alexander MacLeod Milroy, a bank agent, and Margaret Walteria Milroy. His siblings were Jessie, Rowatt, and Margaret.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Eric Milroy” is scottish rugby union player. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Eric, Milroy and Scottish, 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—1887, 1916, 1910, 1914—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1887-12-04. For this dossier, Eric, Milroy and Scottish is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “scottish rugby union player” 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

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5387108. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1916, 1910 and 1914.

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 “Eric Milroy”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Eric Milroy primary sources, Eric Milroy archive and Eric 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 “Eric Milroy”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Eric Milroy” 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.