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Wellwood Herries Maxwell

Scottish politician (1817-1900)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ7981803 ↗
Source-derived summary

Wellwood Herries Maxwell of Munches (15 October 1817 – 13 August 1900) was a Scottish Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1868 to 1874.

Maxwell was the son of John Herries Maxwell of Munches in Buittle. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, at the University of Edinburgh, and at Exeter College, Oxford. In 1839 he was called to the bar in Scotland. He was a director of the Glasgow and South Western Railway. He was a deputy lieutenant and J.P. for the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and Convener of the Commissioners of Supply of Kirkcudbright.

Maxwell was elected Member of Parliament for Kirkcudbright Stewartry at a by-election on 30 January 1868. He held the seat until the 1874 general election.

Maxwell married in 1844 Jane Home Jardine, daughter of Sir William Jardine, Bt. His son William Herries Maxwell was MP for Dumfriesshire.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wellwood Herries Maxwell” is scottish politician (1817-1900). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Wellwood, Herries and Maxwell, 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—1817, 1900, 1868, 1874—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1817-10-15. For this dossier, Wellwood, Herries and Maxwell is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “scottish politician (1817-1900)” 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 May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7981803. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1817, 1900, 1868 and 1874.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. 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 “Wellwood Herries Maxwell”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Wellwood Herries Maxwell primary sources, Wellwood Herries Maxwell archive and Wellwood 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 “Wellwood Herries Maxwell”?
  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 “Wellwood Herries Maxwell” 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.