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Robert William Bell

English rugby union player (1875-1950)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 24, 2025
Entity authorityQ7351071
Source-derived summary

Robert William Bell (19 December 1875 – 9 June 1950) was an English international rugby union forward who played club rugby for Cambridge University and Northern. Bell played international rugby for England.

Personal history

Bell was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1875 to John Robinson Bell. He was educated at Durham School before matriculating to Jesus College, Cambridge in 1896. He received his BA in 1899, and in 1901 he entered the church when he was ordained as a deacon. The following year he was ordained as a priest at Newcastle. Bell took a number of positions in the Anglican church, and was Curate of Benwell (1901–06), Alnwick (1906–07), Whittingham (1907–08), Christchurch (1908–11) and St. Andrews (1911–15). In 1915 he was made perpetual curate of St. Hilda's in Darlington, a position he held until 1931, his longest post.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Robert William Bell” is english rugby union player (1875-1950). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Robert, William and Bell, 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—1875, 1950, 1896, 1899—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1875-12-19. For this dossier, Robert, William and Bell is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “english rugby union player (1875-1950)” 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 Oct 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7351071. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1875, 1950, 1896 and 1899.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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 “Robert William Bell”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Robert William Bell primary sources, Robert William Bell 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 William Bell”?
  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 Robert William Bell” 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.