Talk:William Melville

Rewrite badly needed
This article needs a major rewrite. As it stands, all it does is give information based upon what one book author claims (and things his publishers claim on their webiste that are not even in the book, like the claim that Melville caught Tumblety), while other historians have said that Cook's conclusions are highly speculative and written to be more dramatic than what probably really happened.

It'd would be a good idea if the article incorporated other sources on the topic, or at the very least indicates that this information only comes from one source, and one which is highly questionable.

I've removed the most blatant example of unsupported speculation (the thing that's not even in the book in question) and made another caution at the part that said he was "M" in the secret organization, but from what I understand there are lots more issues all through this book (and by extension, this article) that have the same problem. DreamGuy 20:22, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

How can "Melville of the Yard" be of "British Irish" nationality? He was a British citizen, who died before the creation of the Irish Free State and therefore connot have been anything other than British. Stanley c jenkins (talk) 18:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Oscar Wilde who likewise moved between the two main islands of Great Britain, and lived before the Irish Free State, is likewise described as Irish.

A matter of finding a generally acceptable terminalogy - and see Jackiespeel (talk) 18:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

There are two 'available files' for WM at The National Archives - one a miscellany of documents (including several manuscript letters by him) and a brief memoir (on microfilm). Jackiespeel (talk) 17:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

In the file KV 6/47 which contains a number of papers the signature/typed name is mostly 'W Melville' and a couple of times as 'WM.' Jackiespeel (talk) 16:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)