CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

William Ivory

British screenwriter and actor

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 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ112465547
Source-derived summary

William (Billy) Ivory (born 1964) is a British screenwriter, playwright and actor. He is a three-time BAFTA nominee.

Early life and career

Ivory was born in Southwell, Nottinghamshire and has set many of his works in Nottingham.

He was a pupil at the Minster School in Southwell. He dropped out of his English degree at the University of London after three weeks, going on to work as a binman for nearly three years, writing in his spare time. After he broke his arm, he wanted a less arduous job and so applied to be a stagehand at the Nottingham Playhouse, eventually acting there. He went on to play several roles in television adverts and drama series. Ivory's first television writing credit was Journey to Knock, in 1991, and he has since created and written many television dramas. Ivory's first stage play, The Retirement of Tom Stevens, was produced in 2006. He wrote the screenplay for Made in Dagenham (2010), and for the 2023 film starring Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson, The Great Escaper.

Editorial summary

“William Ivory” enters the record as british screenwriter and actor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what William, Ivory and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 1991, 2006, 2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1964. Its strongest next move is a source search built around William, Ivory and British.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

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

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q112465547. VIAF identifies the subject as 266989381. The Library of Congress control number is no2011049287. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1991, 2006 and 2010.

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 Ivory”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Ivory primary sources, William Ivory 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 Ivory”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from William Ivory” 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.