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W. G. Goddard

Australian broadcaster and essayist (1887-1986)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 18, 2025
Entity authorityQ108301076 ↗
Source-derived summary

William George Goddard (1887–1986) was an Australian intellectual, broadcaster, and writer who "spent much of the 1950s and 1960s serving the Nationalist Chinese regime on Taiwan" and wrote books in support of the Chiang Kai-shek regime there. He had "a considerable influence on the ways in which Taiwan was thought about in many parts of the world" through his books, such as Formosa: A Study in Chinese History (1966) some of which were translated into Chinese and Spanish.

Career

Born in Newcastle, NSW he worked in China before returning to Australia, becoming a "prominent international affairs commentator in the 1930s" at the Brisbane-area 4BC station, writing The New Order in Asia : An Essay on the Future of Civilisation (1940) and in 1941 giving the Morrison Lecture with the title "The Min Shen. A Study in Chinese Democracy". After the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan, Goddard visited Taipei in 1954, renewing his links with the Kuomintang government. He retired to the United Kingdom in the 1970s, where he died in 1986.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “W. G. Goddard” as australian broadcaster and essayist (1887-1986). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1887, 1986, 1966, 1940—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1887-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Goddard, Australian and broadcaster can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as australian broadcaster and essayist (1887-1986). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

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 Jul 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q108301076. VIAF identifies the subject as 4095604. The Library of Congress control number is n90675014. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1986, 1966 and 1940.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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.

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

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “W. G. Goddard”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow W. G. Goddard primary sources, W. G. Goddard archive and Goddard 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

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “W. G. Goddard” 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.