Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Murray Maxwell

Murray Maxwell

Nominator(s): Jackyd101 (talk)

An article about one of those "Boy's Own" style officers that Britain produced in great numbers during the nineteenth century. Maxwell was shipwrecked three times, captured by the French twice and once marooned on a desert island and attacked by angry "natives". He fought at the Siege of Toulon aged 18, destroyed a French armaments convoy in 1811, met (and was enthusuastically greeted by) Napoleon in 1818 and received the worst wound of his career - from which he never fully recovered - during a political debate in Covent Garden. In his spare time he was the first Briton to make "official" contact with Korea, captured Surinam from the Dutch, observed the Peruvian War of Independence and waged a brief one man war against China. He died (presumably from exhaustion) in 1831 whilst on his way to be a colonial governor in Canada. The article has passed GA and had a Military History Project peer review. Special thanks to User:Rama for filling redlinks and User: EyeSerene for his copyedit. All comments appreciated.Jackyd101 (talk) 23:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Query Hi, this one looks like fun, but was that Captain Samuel Hood Linzee or Captain Samuel Hood? WereSpielChequers 23:29, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a frustrating situation. Samuel Hood (careful, there were two contemporary officers of exactly that name) and Samuel Hood Linzee were different people (from different branches of the same family). Hood already has an article, and Hood Linzee probably deserves one as he crops up repeatedly during the French Revolutionary Wars. However, despite my best efforts I have not found even a short biography from which I can develop an article on Hood Linzee (all I know is that he died in 1820 from injuries caused by falling off his horse some unspecified number of years before) and I'm unwilling to create an uninformative stub given the confusion that might be caused by the similarity in names. When I find more information I will put one together.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks for explanation, perhaps a footnote in this article would help? WereSpielChequers 23:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I tried to expain it better in text, does that help?--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:54, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Yup neatly fixed. WereSpielChequers 00:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Image review: all images are in the public domain with verifable information. Jappalang (talk) 03:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. (I took the liberty of fixing your web sources to properly reflect the fact that they are originally published works from dead trees) Ealdgyth - Talk 17:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

• Dabs; please check the disambiguation links identified in the toolbox. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Done WereSpielChequers 00:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Support (as copyeditor). I believe everything is in order, though of course am happy to help to address any concerns. EyeSerene^talk 10:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Support Comments - great article, just a few points that need to be addressed before I can support.

• Why is Maxwell introduced as a captain in the lead, and then a vice admiral in the infobox?

I. . . have no idea. Changed.

• The final two sentences in the first paragraph of the "Early career" section are uncited, and probably should be.
• The final sentences to both paragraphs in the "Adriatic campaign" section are uncited, and probably should be also.
• The same again for several sentences at the end of paragraphs in the "Voyage to China and shipwreck" section.
• "who died in 1874 as a retired admiral of the Royal Navy." - this snippet reads slightly ackward, and should probably be re-written. Perhaps something life "who retired with from the Royal Navy with the rank of admiral before his death in 1874."?

Rephrased

Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 06:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Added or moved a number of refs to cover the ends of paragraphs.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

All of my comments have been addressed, so I'm happy to support. Well done. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 22:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Support Comment - well structured/sourced, prose is excellent, supporting materials look fine. I just have a few minor points:

• In the first line, "particularly" reads better to me than "especially", and this also removes some repetition given that later in the intro you mention him being "specially selected" and "especially commended".
• Extremely minor but not sure we need "knighted in reward for his services - "knighted for his services" does the trick...
• Would like to see the first paragraph under Attack by Dayaks finish with a citation.
• Ditto the last para of that subsection.
• Ditto the last para of the whole article.
• I know red links aren't a barrier to FA status but there are quite a few here - are you planning to create articles for all of them? For those that you aren't, I'd remove for the look of the thing, which is otherwise very good.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Adjustments made, thankyou for your suggestions. I do not have the source material to create the red links at the moment, but I think they should be and when I find material I will create them, so I'd rather leave them linked for now.--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Tks, that's fine - well done. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:40, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.