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Research dossier · People & Ideas

Robert Brown (English politician)

English politician (1921–1996)

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 revisionJan 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ7342399 ↗
Source-derived summary

Robert Crofton Brown (16 May 1921 – 3 September 1996) was an English Labour Party politician.

Brown was a district gas inspector with the Northern Gas Board and a branch secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers. He was secretary of his Constituency Labour Party and a councillor on Newcastle upon Tyne Borough Council.

Brown was elected as the member of parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne West in 1966, then following boundary changes, for Newcastle upon Tyne North from 1983, retiring in 1987.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Robert Brown (English politician)” as english politician (1921–1996). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

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—1921, 1996, 1966, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1921-05-16. The account is most persuasive where Robert, Brown and English can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as english politician (1921–1996). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

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 Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7342399. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 1996, 1966 and 1983.

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 “Robert Brown (English politician)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Robert Brown (English politician) primary sources, Robert Brown (English politician) 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

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Robert Brown (English politician)”?
  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 “Robert Brown (English politician)” 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.