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Thomas Field (politician)

New Zealand politician (1859–1937)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ7789572
Source-derived summary

Thomas Andrew Hemming Field (1859 – 27 October 1937) was a New Zealand politician of the Reform Party.

Early life and family

Field was born in Long Gully, Colony of Victoria, in 1859, the son of Thomas Field, who had migrated from Ireland to Sydney in 1845. The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1862, settling in Nelson, where Field attended Nelson College from 1871 to 1872. He married Jessie Black at Nelson on 24 May 1881, and they had two sons and two daughters. Their eldest son Arthur Nelson Field was a journalist and right-wing author.

In 1885, Field became one of the first cyclists to ride the length of New Zealand.

Wilkins and Field

Field was managing director with his brother Henry Montague Field (1863–1939) of Wilkins and Field Hardware in Nelson. The firm was founded by his father Thomas Field Sr. (1833–1918) in 1866 in Westport, and became Wilkins and Field in 1880 when William Chivers Wilkins (1841–1906) joined the business in Nelson.

Political career

He was first elected as a Nelson City Councillor in 1907 and served in that capacity for four years.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Thomas Field (politician)” is new Zealand politician (1859–1937). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Thomas, Field and politician, not as a finished interpretation.

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—1859, 1937, 1845, 1862—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1859-01-01. For this dossier, Thomas, Field and politician is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “new Zealand politician (1859–1937)” 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 Apr 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7789572. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1859, 1937, 1845 and 1862.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. 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

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 “Thomas Field (politician)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Thomas Field (politician) primary sources, Thomas Field (politician) archive and Thomas 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 “Thomas Field (politician)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Thomas Field (politician)” 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.