William Poole (Australian politician)
Politician from New South Wales, Australia

William Thomas Poole (1828 – 7 February 1902) was an English-born Australian politician.
He was born in London to farmer Daniel Cluttenbuck Poole and Eliza Quiddington. He worked as a railway contractor from a young age and in 1851 was shipwrecked, penniless, in South Australia. He worked on New South Wales railways and settled in Sydney. On 31 December 1853 he married Emma Mary Slemmings, with whom he had five children; a second marriage on 21 June 1867 to Mary Sinclair Macfie produced a further six children. He worked as a district surveyor and also owned a sugar mill at Kempsey. In 1880 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for South Sydney, serving until his defeat in 1885. In 1891 he was elected to Redfern council, of which he was mayor from 1895 to 1896. Poole died at Redfern in 1902.
The public source identifies “William Poole (Australian politician)” as politician from New South Wales, Australia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around William, Poole and Australian.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “William Poole (Australian politician)”, the useful work is to connect “politician from New South Wales, Australia” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
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 Jan 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21069607. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1828, 1902, 1851 and 1853.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “William Poole (Australian politician)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow William Poole (Australian politician) primary sources, William Poole (Australian politician) archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William Poole (Australian politician)”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “William Poole (Australian politician)” 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.