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Thomas Nelson (1822–1892)

Scottish publisher (1822–1892)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 6, 2024
Entity authorityQ18735282 ↗
Source-derived summary

Thomas Nelson FRSE (1822–1892) was a Scottish businessman who joined the family publishing firm of Thomas Nelson in 1839 at which point it was renamed Thomas Nelson & Sons. In 1850 he invented an improved rotary printing press.

Life

He was born on 25 December, Christmas Day, 1822, son of Thomas Nelson then a bookseller, and his wife, Margaret Black. He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh.

Thomas joined his father's company on his 17th birthday in 1839. In 1844 the firm moved to larger premises in Hope Park in Edinburgh's South Side. The company began specialising in school text books. Thomas Junior moved to London in 1844 to open a new major branch there.

He returned to Edinburgh in 1846.

From 1855 he lived with his father in the newly commissioned Abden House in Edinburgh's South Side, inheriting the house on his father's death in 1861.

Editorial summary

“Thomas Nelson (1822–1892)” enters the record as scottish publisher (1822–1892). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomas, Nelson and Scottish 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—1822, 1892, 1839, 1850—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1822. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Thomas, Nelson and Scottish.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Thomas Nelson (1822–1892)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Thomas, Nelson and Scottish 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 6, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q18735282. VIAF identifies the subject as 12176150. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1822, 1892, 1839 and 1850.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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.

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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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  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 “Thomas Nelson (1822–1892)” 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.