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Ulric Cross

Trinidadian lawyer and diplomat

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ15052148 ↗
Source-derived summary

Philip Louis Ulric Cross (1 May 1917 – 4 October 2013) was a Trinidadian jurist, diplomat and Royal Air Force (RAF) navigator, recognised as possibly the most decorated West Indian of World War II. He is credited with helping to prevent some two hundred bombers from being shot down in a raid over Germany in 1943. He subsequently studied law at London's Middle Temple, and went on to fulfil a distinguished international career as a jurist across Africa and within Trinidad and Tobago. He also served as a diplomat for Trinidad and Tobago to the United Kingdom.

Early life and education

Ulric Cross was born on 1 May 1917, in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Reginald Rufus and Maud Iris Cross. He was the second child in a family of nine. At the age of 11, he came first in Trinidad's Government Exhibition Scholarship Examination, thus qualifying for five years of free secondary education, and went on to attend St Mary's College. He was devastated by his mother's death when he was just 13 years old. His academic focus was completely derailed, and so, after completing five years of college education, he left school. His first job was with the Trinidad Guardian as a copy editor. Then he worked for about four years as a clerk to Leo Pujadas, Solicitor.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ulric Cross” is trinidadian lawyer and diplomat. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ulric, Cross and Trinidadian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1917, 2013, 1943—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1917-05-01. For this dossier, Ulric, Cross and Trinidadian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “trinidadian lawyer and diplomat” 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

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 Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15052148. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917, 2013 and 1943.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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 “Ulric Cross”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ulric Cross primary sources, Ulric Cross archive and Ulric 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 “Ulric Cross”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ulric Cross” 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.