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Tom Cotterill

New Zealand rugby league footballer (1884-1943)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 5, 2025
Entity authorityQ7815423
Source-derived summary

Thomas Alfred Cotterill (27 January 1884 – 31 August 1943) was a New Zealand rugby league player who represented New Zealand in 1911, touring Australia. His one and only match for New Zealand was against Queensland on July 1 where he came on as an injury replacement for Ernie Asher. New Zealand won the match 24–13 in front of 7,000 spectators at the Brisbane Cricket Ground.

Club and Hawke's Bay career

Tom Cotterill played for Hawkes Bay against Auckland on October 8, 1910, on the Napier Recreation Ground. Auckland won the match 19–14 with Cotterill scoring a try in the losing side. He played for the Clive club in 1911 making 10 appearances and scoring 2 tries and kicking 2 goals. He played 2 matches for Hawkes Bay both against Wanganui and 2 matches for Napier against Dannevirke. In 1912 there were few reports of matches in the local newspapers for in the club competition however the representative games were better covered. Cotterill played at least once for Napier against Dannevirke, and he made three appearances for Hawkes Bay against Wellington, the touring New South Wales side, and Canterbury. He scored the first try in Hawke's Bay's 42–9 loss to the tourists.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tom Cotterill” as new Zealand rugby league footballer (1884-1943). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

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—1884, 1943, 1911, 1910—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Cotterill, Zealand and rugby can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as new Zealand rugby league footballer (1884-1943). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7815423. The first chronological checks are 1884, 1943, 1911 and 1910.

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 “Tom Cotterill”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Tom Cotterill primary sources, Tom Cotterill archive and Cotterill 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 “Tom Cotterill”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Tom Cotterill” 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.