Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reynell Cotton


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. No support for deletion. (non-admin closure) Atlantic306 (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Reynell Cotton

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Non notable cricket person - doesn't appear to be any evidence he was notable for playing the game - CricketArchive has a single non-first-class match in 1773. Fails WP:NCRIC.

His notability has to rest, then, on WP:COMPOSER and the one song that he wrote some lyrics for (although probably not all of them). This appears in Nyren's book - see wikisource, but there is no other mention of Cotton by name other than as the writer. The Ashley Mote reference can be found at Google Books. It's mentioned in various other places, but doesn't appear to be particularly noteworthy - and this, I think, is where Cotton's notability falls.

An alternative might be to redirect to Hambledon Club, but that seems sketchy at best. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Cricket-related deletion discussions. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:08, 8 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment. The principal source for his cricketing exploits is not a reliable source (self-published by a now blocked editor; the writing style of this article seems rather familiar – "not known", "believed", etc.) – I have removed it and the pure speculation it supported. I have added this source which states him as the founder of Hyde Abbey School and found multiple mentions of "Reynell Cotton's School". wjematherplease leave a message... 21:09, 7 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. In marginal cases like this, my inclination is always to be inclusive. I think there's enough to make him notable, including founding a school that had some distinguished alumni. And the article currently has five citations, so he comfortably passes GNG (is it? - I'm not very fluent in Wikipedian). JH (talk page) 07:27, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep The club song he wrote does seem to get some coverage, and then there's the coverage of the founding of the school Wjemather mentions above. There's probably just enough there and could be more in a more thorough offline search to pass GNG. Not sure the suggested redirect is suitable really with his as notable for his school related actions. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 08:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notability as an educator is definite, though I agree with BST about the cricket aspect. The article should be revised to emphasise Cotton's educational career and perhaps someone from the schools project will be best qualified to do that. I've alerted WP:SCHOOLS to this discussion. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:18, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'm convinced he is certainly more notable from an educational standpoint. StickyWicket (talk) 17:07, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep although not because he passes WP:NCRIC- he doesn't appear to. But there with multiple references from a range of sources his WP:GNG case is already close to or over the line, and given his date of birth, most sources are likely to reside offline, so the standard WP:BEFORE checks are of limited use. DevaCat1 (talk) 18:19, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment I'd be interested to see what, if anything, about Mr Cotton is in The Hambledon Cricket Chronicle 1772-1796: Including The Reproduction Of The Minute And Account Books Of The Club a book from 1923 which covers the period when he was president of Hambledon, but which doesn't appear to be digitised anywhere online. DevaCat1 (talk) 18:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment based on a WP:BEFORE search this is at worst a merge and redirect, but while I see a lot of mentions I haven't seen anything which clearly passes the WP:GNG line to put me in the keep camp (not convinced the Horsham Society Newsletter is reliable for notability reasons, and can't access British Newspaper Archives.) SportingFlyer  T · C  21:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It's an interesting one. As far as I can see, he fails WP:ANYBIO, WP:NACADEMIC, WP:NCRIC and, I think, fails point 3, the relevant one, of WP:CREATIVE. But he existed and did some things. I'm not adverse to the keep - and thanks, btw, to people who have added sources; I was looking just at the song so missed those. But what notability guideline are we hitting here? Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:35, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.