CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Ross Sutton

former Australian Paralympic competitor

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ7369648
Source-derived summary

Ross Edward Sutton (7 January 1938 – 22 July 2000) was the first Australian Paralympic gold medallist. He represented Australia in archery at the 1960 Summer Paralympics in Rome, Italy and dartchery and fencing at the 1962 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Perth, Western Australia. Sutton also competed in table tennis at the Second National Paraplegic Games.

Personal life

Sutton was the eldest of five children and his parents were Edward and Ivy. His mother died when he was 12. Sutton helped his father to run their farm in Guyra, New South Wales. At the age of 15, the family moved to Armidale, New South Wales.

On 20 April 1958, 21-year-old Sutton was involved in a Tiger Moth plane crash in Boorolong near Armidale whilst taking a flying lesson. The crash left him paralysed. Peter FitzSimons described the background to the crash.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ross Sutton” is former Australian Paralympic competitor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ross, Sutton and former, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1938, 2000, 1960, 1962—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1937. For this dossier, Ross, Sutton and former is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “former Australian Paralympic competitor” 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 citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7369648. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 2000, 1960 and 1962.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. 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

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ross Sutton”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ross Sutton primary sources, Ross Sutton archive and Ross 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 “Ross Sutton”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ross Sutton” 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.