CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

William Hughes (1910s footballer)

association football player (1889-1955)

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 revisionNov 6, 2025
Entity authorityQ25184178 ↗
Source-derived summary

William John Hughes MM (1889–1955) was a Welsh professional footballer who played as a right half in the Football League for Newcastle United and Bradford City. He later served Rhyl as trainer and groundsman.

Personal life

Hughes served as a corporal in the Royal Welch Fusiliers during the First World War and won the Military Medal during the course of his service.

Career statistics

Sources

Frost, Terry (1988). Bradford City A Complete Record 1903–1988. Breedon Books Sport. ISBN 0-907969-38-0.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Hughes (1910s footballer)” is association football player (1889-1955). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Hughes and 1910s, 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—1889, 1955, 1988, 1903—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1889-01-01. For this dossier, William, Hughes and 1910s is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “association football player (1889-1955)” 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 Nov 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q25184178. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1955, 1988 and 1903.

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 “William Hughes (1910s footballer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Hughes (1910s footballer) primary sources, William Hughes (1910s footballer) 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 Hughes (1910s footballer)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Hughes (1910s footballer)” 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.