Talk:Edmund Sharpe

Credentials

The main source for this article is Hughes, John M. (2010), Edmund Sharpe: Man of Lancaster, John M. Hughes, a work that has been self-published as a CD. It is a very detailed, scholarly, highly-referenced work which, if printed, would take over 600 pages, plus introductions, references, etc. Elsewhere, the author is credited as a source for the article on Edmund Sharpe in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He is also a contributor to Brandwood, Geoffrey K., The Architecture of Sharpe, Paley and Austin, English Heritage, ISBN 978-1-848020-49-8, a book not yet published, but due to be published in May/June 2012. I have been in personal contact with John Hughes, who tells me that his work is the result of some ten years' research, and the reason for its non-publication in any other form is that it is too long and too detailed! It is the only available detailed work on Sharpe, and I have no doubts about the reliability of it as a source, or of the credentials of the author. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 11:34, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Additional review

For the record, additional aspects of the development of this article were discussed here (this goes with the peer review already listed above). Carcharoth (talk) 01:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Oops!

I made a snippy comment that a piece of vandalism should have been detected before this article was put up as Article of the Day. Then I thought to check, and found that the mischievous addition was made after this article was thrown into prominence. Asking people not to vandalize seems not to have worked. J S Ayer (talk) 01:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism?

Paragraph 2 ends with "Sharpe returned to England in 1866 to live in Scotforth near Lancaster, where he designed a final church near to his home in Baghdad, Iraq." Baghdad, Iraq? There is no mention of him living there. Did he? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.221.158.49 (talk) 04:24, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It was vandalism. I removed it. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 04:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Sharpe, Paley and Austin

I added a link into this Wikipedia page on the history of Sharpe's Lancaster practice, and it has now been removed. This appears odd to me; is there a reason why editors are not keen to have this mentioned in article? I think clarification is especially important given that Thomas Austin and Hubert Austin were brothers; and hence a potential source of confusion? TomHennell (talk) 11:41, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. Sharpe resigned from the practice in 1851; Hubert Austin did not join the practice until 1868. So I do not see how this info is relevant to the article, which is a biography. The text of the edit implied that Austin was a fine architect, which he was (and of course better than Sharpe), but this IMO is also inappropriate in Sharpe's biography (and the edit was uncited). You may be interested that expanded articles on Sharpe, Paley and Austin, on Edward Graham Paley, and on Hubert Austin are in preparation, based on Brandwood's book about the practice. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 12:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Good points; however Wikipedia articles are never 'finished': the better they are (and this is an excellent article), the more we may expect other editors to improve them through radical changes. By the time the counterpart articles are ready, this one will hopefully look very different. In the meanwhile, we have a key counterpart Wikipedia page on the history of Sharpe's practice, which (so far as I can tell) is only referenced in a footnote. That is not good Wikipedia practice; if there is an existing Wikipedia article on the subject, then a biogrpahical article should link to in. Furthermore, there are a number of references in the articles to the Thomases Austin (father and son), who were clearly close to Sharpe; and so it is reasonable to assume that Hubert's joining the practice in 1868 was in some measure associated with this prior family connection. Finally, 'Paley and Austin' are the best known configuration of the practice, and it is through that token that most uninformed but curious readers may be expected to come into an interest in Sharpe. The article should make the relationship clear; and a link into the relevant Wikipedia page would seem the simplest (and most parsimonious) way of doing so. TomHennell (talk) 12:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Point taken. Sharpe, Paley and Austin added to the See also section (yes it should have been there before). I hope this sorts the situation for the time being. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 12:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)