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Robert Hamilton (Scottish footballer)

Scottish footballer (1877-1948)

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 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ3435347
Source-derived summary

Robert Cumming Hamilton (13 May 1877 – 2 May 1948) was a Scottish international footballer who played as a Centre forward and was known for his prolific scoring record and his ten-season association with Rangers.

Playing career

Club

Hamilton started his football career with the local side Elgin City in the Highland League. He relocated to Glasgow in 1896 to attend the city's University and joined Queen's Park. A year later, he joined the Rangers until 1907, earning a reputation as a potent goal-scorer who was remarkably accurate from long range.

Hamilton played every match, was top scorer and captained the team during the 1898–99 season, in which they won every league match. He earned further League winners' medals in 1899–1900, 1900–01 and 1901–02 and was part of Rangers' Scottish Cup-winning sides in 1898 and 1903. He became Rangers' all-time top scorer against rivals Celtic during his time at Ibrox, was the club's top goalscorer for nine consecutive seasons and the highest overall in Scottish League Division One on six occasions (including two shared awards), his highest total being 28 from 24 appearances in 1903–04.

Hamilton moved south of the border to join Fulham in May 1906, helping them to win the 1906–07 Southern League title, before returning to Rangers a year later. He left the Govan club for a second time in 1908, briefly moving to Heart of Midlothian before joining Morton. He signed for Dundee at the end of the 1909–10 season, too late to be involved in the side which defeated Clyde to win the Scottish Cup, Dundee's first, that year.

Editorial summary

“Robert Hamilton (Scottish footballer)” enters the record as scottish footballer (1877-1948). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, Hamilton and Scottish can confirm, complicate or overturn.

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—1877, 1948, 1896, 1907—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1877-05-13. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Robert, Hamilton and Scottish.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Robert Hamilton (Scottish footballer)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Robert, Hamilton and Scottish 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 May 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3435347. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1948, 1896 and 1907.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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.

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  • Building a first chronology
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Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow Robert Hamilton (Scottish footballer) primary sources, Robert Hamilton (Scottish footballer) archive and Robert 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

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Robert Hamilton (Scottish 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.