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Wally Smith (footballer, born 1874)

English footballer born 1874

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ10556409 ↗
Source-derived summary

Walter Alfred Smith (1874 – 14 November 1958) was an English footballer who made 90 appearances in the Football League for Lincoln City. He played as an inside left.

Born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Smith played local football in the Lincoln area before joining Lincoln City. He scored 23 goals from 99 appearances in senior competition, the last of which was at the end of the 1902–03 season. He joined Second Division club Small Heath, but never made a competitive appearance, and went on to play for Midland League club Newark, Southern League clubs Brighton & Hove Albion, Norwich City and Southend United, and other non-league teams. Smith died in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, in 1958.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wally Smith (footballer, born 1874)” is english footballer born 1874. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Wally, Smith and footballer, 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—1874, 1958, 1902—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1874. For this dossier, Wally, Smith and footballer is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “english footballer born 1874” 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

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 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10556409. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1874, 1958 and 1902.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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 “Wally Smith (footballer, born 1874)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Wally Smith (footballer, born 1874) primary sources, Wally Smith (footballer, born 1874) archive and Wally 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 “Wally Smith (footballer, born 1874)”?
  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 “Wally Smith (footballer, born 1874)” 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.