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The Captain (magazine)

British magazine for "boys and old boys"

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 23, 2025
Entity authorityQ7721281 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Captain was a magazine featuring stories and articles for "boys and old boys", published monthly in the United Kingdom from 1899 to 1924. Its headquarters were in London. It is perhaps best known for printing many of P. G. Wodehouse's early school stories.

The magazine was established in April 1899 by publisher George Newnes, with R. S. Warren Bell as its first editor. Authors who contributed to The Captain include P. G. Wodehouse, F. C. Selous, Bertram Mitford, C. B. Fry (the Athletic Editor), Edward Step, Dr Gordon Stables, Harold Avery, E. H. D. Sewell, and Charles Gilson. Artists who provided illustrations include Tom Browne, Paul Hardy, Alfred Pearse, and John Hassall.

The editor Warren Bell's brother, John Keble Bell, also contributed under the pen name Keble Howard. Howard suggested turning the magazine into a pure athletics magazine, aiming at an undergraduate audience, but Warren Bell decided against the idea.

Some of the school stories by Wodehouse published in the magazine were featured in the collection Tales of St. Austin's (1903).

Editorial summary

“The Captain (magazine)” enters the record as british magazine for "boys and old boys". Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Captain, magazine and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1899, 1924, 1903—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1899-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Captain, magazine and British.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Captain (magazine)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Captain, magazine and British provides the most credible route into that argument.

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 Dec 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7721281. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1924 and 1903.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. 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.

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  2. Expand the search: follow The Captain (magazine) primary sources, The Captain (magazine) archive and Captain 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.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Captain (magazine)” 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.