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William Dingwall Fordyce

Scottish 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 revisionApr 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ8007848 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Dingwall Fordyce (31 March 1836 – 26 November 1875) was a Scottish Liberal politician. He was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) in 1866 to represent Aberdeenshire and, following the re-organisation of constituencies by the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868, on 20 November 1868 to represent Eastern Aberdeenshire.

He pioneered benefits for his tenants, such as insurance for their cottages, and sent carriages to Banff, Peterhead, and Aberdeen each week, so that they had greater mobility. He drove through gaming laws to aid the rural economy and created a railway station at Maud, which is now a part-time museum.

On his death in 1876, aged 39, the Culsh Monument was built for him by tenant subscription and designed by James Matthews. He was buried on his estate at Brucklay Castle, where an obelisk marks his grave.

Editorial summary

“William Dingwall Fordyce” enters the record as scottish politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what William, Dingwall and Fordyce can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1836, 1875, 1866, 1868—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1836-03-31. Its strongest next move is a source search built around William, Dingwall and Fordyce.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“William Dingwall Fordyce” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, William, Dingwall and Fordyce provides the most credible route into that argument.

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 Apr 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8007848. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1836, 1875, 1866 and 1868.

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 Dingwall Fordyce”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Dingwall Fordyce primary sources, William Dingwall Fordyce 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 Dingwall Fordyce”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Dingwall Fordyce” 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.