Talk:Harold Davidson

Archive June 2005 to Febrary 2009

Upgrade and expansion
The article will be revised and expanded over the next few weeks. Brianboulton (talk) 18:49, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Barbara Harris
According to this website, the errant Barbara Harris, who disappeared from public view after the 1932 Stiffkey trial, led a long and active life as the wife of the distinguished artist Leslie Cole and was, among other things, an associate of Dylan Thomas. This is marvellous news if true, because it ties up one of the more obvious loose ends of the Davidson story.

The question is, though, how reliable is the information? I don't know anything about "Swindon Life", the website's publisher, or what their editorial standards are. Would the site qualify as a high quality, reliable source in WP terms? It is slightly worrying that the site includes obvious errors, like giving Barbara's "real" name as "Barbara Price" when it was indubitably Barbara Harris (to be exact, "Gwendoline Barbara Harris"). Also, I cannot find any publication details of the supposed book "Leslie Cole, Official War Artist", which allegedly exposes Barbara's identity.

The BBC in 1994 made intensive efforts to find out what had happened to Barbara, when preparing their 1994 documentary on the Davidson case. They found nothing. When researching for his biography of Davidson (pub. 2007), Jonathan Tucker was more successful, and in October 2003 managed to track down  Mrs Ann Paxman, daughter of Barbara's sister Sylvia Harris. According to Mrs Paxman, Sylvia and Barbara became completely estranged after the 1932 trial, and lost contact. They never met again and, Mrs Paxman, said, "the family have no idea what happened to Barbara". These facts do not invalidate the Swindon Life story, but it would be interesting to know where the author of the putative Cole book, Matthew Yorke, got his information from.

Although I would love the story to be true, I don't think it can be added to the article as indisputable fact, though a cautious note of what might have become of Barbara could be acceptable. It is not appropriate to pipe-link "Barbara Harris" to the Leslie Cole article; the correct procedure is to redlink her name pending the creation of a WP article for her. Brianboulton (talk) 20:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The book seems to be Today I worked well - the picture fell off the brush : the artistry of Leslie Cole (Fleece Press, Huddersfield, 2010). Held by the V&A and the National Library of Wales, but nowhere else according to COPAC; ISBN 0948375906; limited print run, and probably quite hard to get hold of. Yorke has published on other war artists with the same small press - Edward Ardizzone, Edward Bawden, etc.
 * It's outlined here as "revealed to friends before she died ... [supported by] a meticulous genealogical investigation by Christopher Whittick and Julian Moore". Andrew Gray (talk) 17:50, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That looks very interesting indeed. There is no chance that I will get hold of the book (limited edition, £212 a throw), but the publisher's resumé looks reasonably convincing. I will ponder on how to incorporate this information into the article; many thanks for taking this trouble. Brianboulton (talk) 23:31, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * (Later) I have added a couple of sentences to the "Aftermath" section. I don't think more need be said; the focus of the article has to be Davidson. Brianboulton (talk) 11:29, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * A bit of further digging suggests that Whittick is a county archivist in East Sussex, which gives me more faith in his conclusions (though as you say, without seeing the book...). The current solution looks good. Andrew Gray (talk) 11:43, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

London-based
Under Consistory Court hearing, it says, "Because of the level of press interest, and the number of London-based witnesses involved..." Can anyone suggest better wording for this? Did these people live in London? Did they work there? Or perhaps they spent much time there without doing either? Inglok (talk) 14:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Birthplace
According to Roots Web Davidson was born in Hound, Hampshire. In the article his birthplace is given as Scholing some 3 miles distant. Do editors agree that a change should be made?Northmetpit (talk) 16:18, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

"Little evidence"
The article currently reads "Commentators have found little evidence that he behaved indecently, or molested the girls; he bought them tea, found them rooms, listened to their problems and sometimes found them work on the stage or in domestic service"; surely some indication of the "little evidence" they allegedly found warrants inclusion here? The rest of the article doesn't conclusively provide any "evidence" for his indecent behaviour or molestation of these girls. Surely it should read "Commentators have found little that could be considered evidence..."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.114.237 (talk) 16:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)