Talk:Sophia Crichton-Stuart, Marchioness of Bute

Initial thoughts

Hi, thank you for creating this article. I have a few comments.

• Notability: I am not convinced that you have established sufficient notability, see Wikipedia:Notability (people). While I support efforts to increase coverage of women in Wikipedia, we should not stretch the guidelines too far. Notability through her husband is insufficient, see WP:INVALIDBIO. While you have cited several sources, those I have looked at mainly concern her husband. Your efforts would not be wasted if she is not judged to be notable, most of this material could be added to her husband's article.
• Potential for confusion with Lady Sophia Anne Crichton-Stuart (born 1956, known as Sophie), daughter of John Crichton-Stuart, 6th Marquess of Bute and wife of the rock musician Jimmy Bain.[1][2][3] I suspect that Lady Sophie would not qualify for a stand-alone article, but our readers may search for her and we should guide them to what we have. I suggest this hatnote:

For Lady Sophia Anne Crichton-Stuart (born 1956), see the articles on her father, John Crichton-Stuart, 6th Marquess of Bute and her husband Jimmy Bain.

We could add a sentence to say that her namesake Lady Sophia Ann Crichton-Stuart (born 1956) is her four-times-great-granddaughter (or whatever).

• It would be good to add a picture. Her portrait would have been painted, and it would now be out of copyright. Unfortunately, Google searches mostly lead to the current Lady Sophie. It would also be good to have a picture of Sophia Gardens, I can't find one on Commons but some may be wrongly described as Bute Park.

Regards, Verbcatcher (talk) 19:22, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Also, 'Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom' is over-elaborate and might be confusing, 'Queen Victoria' is better. She was queen of several other countries, and readers might think this wording is to distinguish this Queen Victoria from the more famous one. Verbcatcher (talk) 00:21, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Er... How could they think that "Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom" doesn't mean the queen of that name that ruled the United Kingdom? Deb (talk) 08:10, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I have uploaded c:File:Sophia Crichton-Stuart, Marchioness of Bute.jpg and added it to the article. I have grouped the pictures of Sophia Gardens into c:Category:Sophia Gardens, but none of these look very suitable. We should mention Sophia Gardens (cricket ground), which is known by cricket fans worldwide. Verbcatcher (talk) 02:42, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Agree that donation of Sophia Gardens is among her main notability claims. This, Swiss Bridge at Cardiff Castle, has another cite on that, if it helps. I shall dig through my stuff on the 3rd Marquess to see what else I can find. KJP1 (talk) 08:21, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

It's difficult to argue someone is not notable, when they have a well-known public park named after them and were a major benefactor to Cardiff. If this were about a man, the question wouldn't even arise. Sionk (talk) 10:39, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

• Notabilty: I reject any implication of sexism. Notability is one of the things we should look for when assessing a new article, and it appears that Sophia C-S is only notable because a park was named after her. Is this sufficient? Her father, husband and son are clearly notable, but this should be excluded from our assessment. I have since learned that she instigated the making of the park,[4] which is a more active role than merely allowing to to be given her name. However, I think there is still an issue of notability.
• Queen Victoria: my point was not that Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is ambiguous, but that it is unnecessarily specific. This is mainly a matter of style - there would be no doubt about which Queen Victoria was meant, so it would be better to just say 'Queen Victoria'.

• The reason I added "of the United Kingdom" is that it is not clear to some readers that Scotland and Wales are part of the United Kingdom. (The current US president hasn't even figured it out yet.)

• Referring to her: MOS:SURNAME says After the initial mention, a person should generally be referred to by surname only. I think this makes some articles appear old-fashioned and redolent of snooty public schools and grammar schools, but this is not the place for that argument. To meet the MOS 'Sophia' should be replaced by 'Crichton-Stuart' in most places. Also, it appears to be incorrect to refer to her as 'the marchioness' after her husband's death, as she was then 'the dowager marchioness'.[5] Is this too picky? There wasn't another Marchioness of Bute until the 3rd Marquess's marriage in 1872 (after her death), so there is no risk of ambiguity. Verbcatcher (talk) 23:22, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

• I understand your point about calling her "the marchioness". However, it should be noted that she was effectively acting as the marquess until he attained his majority. (This also means that she was in control of his financial and business interests, which I think settles any notability dispute.) I don't agree with using "Crichton-Stuart" as this was the surname of both her husband and her son, and could be confusing - hence why I used "Sophia". Deb (talk) 08:16, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Maybe it would be better to separate any issues about notability from the issues about disambiguation, for the sake of navigating this talk page (if they remain to be an issue, of course). Sionk (talk) 11:29, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

In my view we are almost there with notability. Can we find a source to confirm Sophia controlled the vast Bute estates and commercial interests? Did she formally hold them in trust for her son? Her son's article says his vast inheritance reportedly made him the richest man in the world – I agree that controlling these assets would be notable, particularly for a woman at that time. MOS:LEAD says that we should establish notability in the lead section. If we can find a source to confirm it, I suggest

• Sophia Crichton-Stuart, Marchioness of Bute (1 February 1809 – 28 December 1859), formerly Sophia Frederica Christina Rawdon-Hastings, was a Scottish noblewoman and philanthropist. She was the second wife of John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute, and the mother of the 3rd Marquess. After her husband's death she controlled his vast wealth until her son came of age. Cardiff's Sophia Gardens are named after her.

Verbcatcher (talk) 20:45, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Either Hannah or Davies, or both, will have this, although the 3rd Marquesses's inheritance was fraught. I have them, so will read through. I think the notability is already established, but agree this additional, cited, info. would be useful. KJP1 (talk) 21:10, 18 June 2019 (UTC)