CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Tom Winnard

English rugby league footballer (1909-1986)

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 revisionAug 25, 2025
Entity authorityQ7795242 ↗
Source-derived summary

Thomas Winnard (1 September 1909 – February 1986) was an English professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1930s and 1940s. He played at representative level for England and Lancashire, and at club level for Wigan Highfield, St. Helens and Bradford Northern, as a centre.

Playing career

Championship final appearances

Winnard played, and scored a try in St. Helens' 9–5 victory over Huddersfield in the Championship Final during the 1931–32 season at Belle Vue, Wakefield on Saturday 7 May 1932.

County League appearances

Winnard played in St. Helens' victories in the Lancashire League during the 1929-30 season and 1931-32 season.

International honours

Winnard won a cap for England while at Bradford Northern in 1937 against France at Thrum Hall, Halifax.

Personal life

Tom Winnard was the father of the rugby league centre, second-row, and loose forward of the 1950s and 1960s for Bradford Northern; Ralph Winnard.

Editorial summary

“Tom Winnard” enters the record as english rugby league footballer (1909-1986). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Winnard, English and rugby can confirm, complicate or overturn.

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—1909, 1986, 1931, 1932—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1909-09-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Winnard, English and rugby.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Tom Winnard” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Winnard, English and rugby 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 Aug 25, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7795242. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1986, 1931 and 1932.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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 “Tom Winnard”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Tom Winnard primary sources, Tom Winnard archive and Winnard 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 “Tom Winnard”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Tom Winnard” 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.