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Research dossier · People & Ideas

William Button (died 1547)

English politician

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 revisionJan 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ8006231 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Button (by 1503 – 27 March 1547) was an English landowner who was returned to parliament at one election.

He came from Alton Priors, near Devizes in Wiltshire. He was a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Chippenham in 1529, and a justice of the peace from 1537.

He married Agnes Cater of Letcombe Regis, Berkshire, in or before 1525. She died in 1528; he died on 27 March 1547 and was buried with his wife in the choir of Alton Priors church. Their only son, also William (1526–1591) went on to be MP for Marlborough.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “William Button (died 1547)” as english politician. 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—1503, 1547, 1529, 1537—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where William, Button and died can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as english politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

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 Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8006231. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1503, 1547, 1529 and 1537.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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 “William Button (died 1547)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Button (died 1547) primary sources, William Button (died 1547) archive and William 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 “William Button (died 1547)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Button (died 1547)” 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.