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Percy Dawson (footballer)

English footballer (1890-1974)

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 7, 2025
Entity authorityQ7167300 ↗
Source-derived summary

Percival Hall Dawson (born 4 December 1889 – 1974) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He played in the Scottish Football League for Heart of Midlothian and in the English Football League for Blackburn Rovers, moving between them in 1914 for what is believed to be a record transfer fee at the time.

Career

Dawson was born in Cullercoats. Early on in his football career, he played for non-league sides Whitley Athletic and North Shields before moving to Scottish club Heart of Midlothian in 1911. In 1913, however, Hearts were required to sell Dawson in order to fund improvements to their Tynecastle Stadium, and he was transferred to Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £2,500 – a fee which several sources claim was a then world record transfer fee.

In his first season with Blackburn, he contributed to the club winning the English First Division, and helped them to a third-place finish the following season.

The outbreak of World War I brought about an end to professional football in England for four seasons. After serving as a sergeant in the Royal Garrison Artillery during the war, Dawson returned to Blackburn and remained with the club until 1922. He played four matches for Barrow in 1923 before retiring from football.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Percy Dawson (footballer)” is english footballer (1890-1974). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Percy, Dawson and footballer, not as a finished interpretation.

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—1889, 1974, 1914, 1911—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1890-11-29. For this dossier, Percy, Dawson and footballer is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “english footballer (1890-1974)” 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

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 Nov 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7167300. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1974, 1914 and 1911.

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

This entry incorporates text from “Percy Dawson (footballer)” 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.