CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Douglas Morpeth

British accountant

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 revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ5301824 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir Douglas Morpeth (6 June 1924 – 26 August 2014) was a Scottish officer in the British Army and a chartered accountant.

Biography

Sir Douglas was born in Perth, Scotland and educated at George Watson's College in Edinburgh. On leaving school in 1942, he volunteered for the army and subsequently served in the Royal Artillery in India, Burma and Malaya. He was demobilised in 1947 with the rank of captain. He attended the University of Edinburgh from 1947 to 1949 where he graduated with a business studies degree. While at the University, Sir Douglas met Anne Rutherford Bell whom he subsequently married in May 1951, after which they moved to London.

In 1951 he joined the Honourable Artillery Company ("HAC"), the oldest regiment in the British Army, and commanded the 1st Regiment HAC, Royal Horse Artillery, from 1964 to 1966. He was appointed Master Gunner within the Tower of London in 1966, a position he held until 1969. He was awarded the Territorial Decoration ("TD") in 1959.

Sir Douglas qualified as an English chartered accountant (rather than a Scottish Chartered Accountant as the Scottish Institute had decided not to shorten training contracts for ex-servicemen) and joined George A. Touche & Co (now Deloitte), one of the few accounting firms in the UK at that time with international presence in the United States and Canada.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Douglas Morpeth” is british accountant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Douglas, Morpeth and British, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1924, 2014, 1942, 1947—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Douglas, Morpeth and British is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british accountant” 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

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5301824. The first chronological checks are 1924, 2014, 1942 and 1947.

Critical limits

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

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 “Douglas Morpeth”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Douglas Morpeth primary sources, Douglas Morpeth archive and Douglas 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 “Douglas Morpeth”?
  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 “Douglas Morpeth” 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.