Talk:John Wadham (died 1578)

This article was nominated for deletion on 27 May 2016. The result of the discussion was merge to Various - See AFD.

It is not clear to me that this individual meets our notability criteria; he appears to have led an unremarkable life in the 16th century - apart from the details of who he married and his children's names, the only other distinctive information the article puts forward are that his name and carved face appears on a monument in the local church, made at least five years after his death, which might be relevant to an article on the local church, but doesn't make him particularly notable in himself. His son was more prominent, but again that falls outside our policies (see

He was a wealthy member of the west-country gentry who owned several estates in Devon and Somerset and thus wielded considerable power. He is mentioned in many sources. Americans would love to have just one 16th century monument in any church in the USA, yet you dismiss this one, much written about and of such great interest due to its heraldry, as a "carved face". It is a great deal more than that, it is an important piece of sculpture from an artistic, heraldic and genealogical viewpoint, and the people of Branscombe are very proud to have it. In fact as was widely reported in the local press recently year, the Warden of Wadham College and a whole group of people came to Branscombe in 2015(?) on an official visit to look at the monument and to visit Edge, in the company of local dignitaries and much of the village and the present owners of Edge Mansion. The event was celebrated with a fresh lobster and cream feast for the whole village which went on for two days, a very big event. Groups of students come down to Edge for reading weekends every year and visit the monument. I think you have been swayed to propose this as "not notable" because you wanted to exercise the "nuclear option" having failed to make all your edits in the article stick. Seemingly a peevish action, not designed to add to the wealth of Wikipedia. By the way, I'm placing on record here that this user is currently involved in a dispute with me elsewhere at The Grange, Broadhembury, which is getting pretty hot, and has taken to visiting other of my contributions whilst that dispute is ongoing. Not wise, not helpful and not designed to calm the situation.(Lobsterthermidor (talk) 11:30, 14 May 2016 (UTC))[reply]

I'm still struggling to see what this John Wadham is notable for. He doesn't appear to have held any political office, etc., and there's no evidence put forward here that he held particular power. Once we strip away his notable father, and his notable son (neither of which confer notability on him), all we are left with is his wife's memorial. It isn't a memorial to John, nor did he commission this (that we know of, having been dead himself for several years) and I haven't seen any evidence so far that it is "much written about", certainly not to the point that its mere existence would confer notability on one of the persons depicted on it (and I'd imagine, being Joan's memorial, it would confer notability on her first!). The listing from English Heritage for the church, for example, just says that the "good" memorial "commemorates Joan Wadham who died 1583. On a plain table tomb is a Beerstone plaque flanked by pilasters with pedimented head. On it are carved in bas relief her 2 husbands facing each other and kneeling in prayer. Behind each of them is a smaller figure of Joan and behind each of these her children." English Heritage don't even feel the need to mention John by name.

I'd recommend copying the material on the memorial to the article on the church, and removing this article as lacking genuine notability. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:24, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Hchc2009 here. He was born, he came into his inheritance, he married, he had children, he died, and his family made him a monument. That is the average life of the average gentry, nothing notable. Most of Lobsterthermidor's argument seems to be that the monument is notable, but that doesn't mean the man is. 50.37.97.12 (talk) 01:57, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Let me add that the ancestry tree in this article is problematic. It seems standard operating procedure these days to throw in this tree format on any gentry or nobility page, but as with many such pedigrees this one is a mass of unreferenced original research, with errors, missing information and connections about which there is significant disagreement among published sources. Given that almost nobody in the pedigree is notable anyhow, it veers towards WP:UNDUE and I think the article would be better off without such a tree. 50.37.103.107 (talk) 14:16, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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• "The article's a bit of a WP:COATRACK. Personally, the bar for articles which link a number of unambiguously notable articles that don't cleanly interlink should be considered significantly lower. In this case, however, his notability is low and merging should be clean: move the monument information to Saint Winifred's Church, Branscombe, Devon, fold familial information into Nicholas Wadham (1531–1609), redirect there from this article to preserve the page history, and link between his son and his father Nicholas Wadham (died 1542)" User:Hydronium Hydroxide

I've returned the article to the agreed redirect; if something's missed, can you help move it to the correct page? Hchc2009 (talk) 07:06, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]