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Wilfred Kitching

General of The Salvation Army (1893–1977)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ4577194
Source-derived summary

Wilfred Kitching CBE (22 August 1893 – 15 December 1977) was a British Salvation Army officer who was their seventh General between 1954 and 1963.

Biography

Born in Wood Green, London, to Theodore and Jane Kitching (née Cranshaw); his father was also a Salvation Army officer. Wilfred attended Friern Barnet Grammar School. He became a Salvation Army Officer at age 20 in 1914. He would serve over 30 years in corps, divisional and National Headquarters appointments, and the British Territory.

He and Adjutant Kathleen Bristow were married in 1929. In 1946, he was sent to serve in Australia South as Chief Secretary. He was sent to Sweden to serve as Territorial Commander in 1948. In 1951, he became British Commissioner.

The Commissioner was elected General of The Salvation Army by the High Council in 1954.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wilfred Kitching” is general of The Salvation Army (1893–1977). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Wilfred, Kitching and General, not as a finished interpretation.

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—1893, 1977, 1954, 1963—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1893-08-22. For this dossier, Wilfred, Kitching and General is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “general of The Salvation Army (1893–1977)” 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 citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4577194. VIAF identifies the subject as 487159234106603370815. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1893, 1977, 1954 and 1963.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. 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

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.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Wilfred Kitching”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Wilfred Kitching primary sources, Wilfred Kitching archive and Wilfred 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 “Wilfred Kitching”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Wilfred Kitching” 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.