Talk:Maurice Wilder-Neligan

"English born"
MOS:OPENPARA is very clear about this. Place of birth can be in the lead if relevant to the person's notability, but should not be in the lead sentence. Since being born in England is so very important to his story, I suggest expanding the lead to make it clear why. How about this: "... was an Australian soldier, who commanded the South Australian-raised 10th Battalion during the latter stages of World War I. Although born in Devon, England, he enlisted as a private in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 20 August 1914 at Townsville, Queensland, under the name Maurice Wilder, giving Auckland as his place of birth. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel by the end of the war, fighting during the Gallipoli campaign and on the Western Front in France and Belgium."

LK (talk) 09:33, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Since the sentence as it currently stands violates MOS:BIO guidelines, unless there are WP:POLICY based arguments why it should remain, I will be removing birth place from the lead sentence. LK (talk) 01:08, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It violated nothing of the sort. MOS:BIO says, with respect to places of birth and death, "they should not be mentioned in the opening brackets of the lead sentence alongside the birth and death dates". The fact that he was English-born was never in the opening brackets of the lead sentence of the article. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:41, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * G'day, offering a third opinion here... personally I think that the original was more succinct, so I would suggest a reversion to that. That said, that there is a compromise solution that could be implemented: if there are concerns about mentioning that he was "English-born", I'd suggest removing those words from the original lead and just allowing the reader to learn about it later. Just my opinion, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:17, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I've trimmed it. The MOS:BIO reference is a canard, it doesn't say what LK says. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:26, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Bankruptcy?
The London Daily Telegraph of 1908 reports bankruptcy proceedings against Wilder-Neligan, and gives some additional info of his early life and travels. For anyone with a british newspaper archive subscription the link is http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001112/19080812/144/0012. Text of the article itself is below:


 * Great stuff, thanks! Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:17, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Daughter
A slightly less relevant newspaper source - Wilder-Neligan's daughter later became a talented fencer:


 * I think this is a little too obscure and tangential for inclusion. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:30, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, probably so. The daughter only gets one line in the article, and it kind of reads like he never really went back to his family, so that's probably sufficient. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:33, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Archives
Name is misspelled as Wilder-NeligEn. Prunerfood (talk) 04:25, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't know where you are referring to? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:29, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Geographical problem
The article says "he worked as a clerk at a sugar mill weighbridge in Proserpine, Queensland, and while doing so, lived at Kelly's Club Hotel in Brandon, where he formed a close connection to the publican's family". Proserpine and Brandon are nearly 200km apart, so he wouldn't have commuted that distance every day. They're both sugar-growing towns, and I presume that two separate episodes in his life have become conflated. Peter Bell (talk) 03:29, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Pinging for a response – Ianblair23 (talk) 03:36, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Quite. Have checked the source and tweaked the wording to not explicitly link the two. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:06, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Place of death
As Papua New Guinea was an Australian territory at the time of his death, shouldn't his place of death be 'Ekerapi, Territory of New Guinea, Australia'? - Emil Sayahi (talk) 09:58, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Seems a bit overly technical, and New Guinea was a League of Nations mandated territory at the time, rather than part of Australia per se. Happy to parse it this finely if the consensus indicates that is what we should do. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:03, 29 July 2018 (UTC)