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Bill Smalley

English footballer (1864-1912)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 19, 2023
Entity authorityQ4910905 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Smalley (1864–1912) was an English footballer who played in the Football League for Stoke.

Career

Smalley was born in Darwen and was on the books of Preston North End's reserve team but had not played for the first–team. When Stoke went to Deepdale, the home of Preston North End on 6 October 1888 they were missing two players who failed to board the train the morning so Preston lent them Smalley and fellow reserve team player Alfred Dempsey. The visitors were overwhelmed in a 7–0 defeat and Smalley never played first–team football again. Smalley' brother Robert Smalley played in goal for Everton.

Editorial summary

“Bill Smalley” enters the record as english footballer (1864-1912). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bill, Smalley and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.

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—1864, 1912, 1888—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1864-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Bill, Smalley and English.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Bill Smalley” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bill, Smalley and English provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q4910905. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1864, 1912 and 1888.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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 “Bill Smalley”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bill Smalley primary sources, Bill Smalley archive and Bill 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 “Bill Smalley”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bill Smalley” 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.