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William Wilson Bratton

American politician and lawyer (1913–1984)

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 revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ120556219 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Wilson Bratton (1913 – February 17, 1984) was an American politician and lawyer from Maryland. He served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, representing Cecil County from 1951 to 1954.

Early life

William Wilson Bratton was born in 1913 in Elkton, Maryland. He graduated from Elkton High School in 1931. He graduated from Western Maryland College in 1936 and later graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law. He was admitted to the bar in Maryland in 1946.

Career

Bratton served as a member of the U.S. Army's 29th Infantry Division during World War II. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Bratton was a Democrat. He was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, representing Cecil County, from 1951 to 1954.

Bratton worked as a lawyer.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “William Wilson Bratton” as american politician and lawyer (1913–1984). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around William, Wilson and Bratton.

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—1913, 1984, 1951, 1954—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1913-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with William, Wilson and Bratton providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “William Wilson Bratton”, the useful work is to connect “american politician and lawyer (1913–1984)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

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 Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q120556219. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1913, 1984, 1951 and 1954.

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 Wilson Bratton”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Wilson Bratton primary sources, William Wilson Bratton 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 Wilson Bratton”?
  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 Wilson Bratton” 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.