Talk:Henry Grove

Miscellaneous areas for improvement

So I disagreed with Morrisworm that the article doesn't credibly indicate the importance of its subject; I think there's plenty there to support the idea that Grove was important, and any more detailed notability analysis should be done at AfD. I also removed the {{tone}} template because I didn't think the tone was so far off as to justify the banner on the user-facing page.

That said, I can see where both complaints are coming from. On the importance of the subject, it would be good to flesh out the lead to indicate to the reader why Grove is someone they might like to know more about. Charles Matthews is there anything you can think of to help make that case?

On the "tone" part, the article does have a bit of a flavor of the 1890 PD source attached to it. Starting with the intro sentence, I don't really know what a "dissenting tutor" is; it would be good to say a few words about that. Then the "Life" section comes across as a bit rambling and unfocused. --Trovatore (talk) 19:07, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

@Trovatore: The nomination, frankly, appears to be boundary-testing from an account created not that long ago. A dissenting tutor was someone who taught in the dissenting academies, a parallel education system in England that existed for about two centuries. It is not a valid reason for deletion that some editor doesn't find the topic interesting.

Henry Grove is a typical conversion of a substantial article from the Dictionary of National Biography, that I made 15 years ago. All such conversions can be considered "placeholder text". The normal next step of improvement is to reference the modern revision, at Kirk, Brian W. "Grove, Henry (1684–1738)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11681. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.).

I have just searched Google Books for "Henry Grove"+tutor and there are plenty of hits. So e.g "Henry Grove, tutor at Taunton Academy, had led a major reaction among Presbyterian academies to Calvinist theology in favor of free will doctrines" from . It's really not hard to see how to add value to the article. Charles Matthews (talk) 04:40, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

@Charles Matthews and @Trovatore, look at the state of the article. In what way does it appear to be something of encyclopedic value? It seems like a narration of someone's life regardless of whether they are really important or not. Speaking of importance, what exactly has Mr Grove done that we need an article about him? Article says he is a dissenting tutor.

A quick Google search about "dissenting tutor" gives this much detail:

• In 17th–19th century England, “dissenters” were Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England (for example, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists).
• Because they were excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, they set up their own schools and colleges, known as dissenting academies.
• A “dissenting tutor” was a teacher or instructor in one of these dissenting academies, usually a clergyman of a nonconformist denomination.

There might have been hundreds of these people, so should we start writing a separate article about each one of them?

In my opinion, we can discuss him at the Dissenting academies page, not create a separate page. Morris (talk with this worm) 06:33, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

@Morrisworm: Henry Grove is included in the DNB and ODNB, two major biographical dictionaries, which is prime facie evidence of notability here. At List of dissenting academies (1660–1800) you can see many dissenting tutors, some of them being considered notable, others who are not redlinked not necessarily notable. Grove has been included in encyclopedias since at least 1807.. There is no basis for stating that by the usual criteria applied here Grove lacks notability.

When you say "look at the state of the article", that appears to be a misconception about processes here. Many, many articles are tagged in numerous ways for improvement. Ways to improve the article are discussed above.

The function of Talk:Henry Grove is to discuss improvements to the article. Please do that here. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:51, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

@Charles Matthews, I did discuss: Remove this from here and write a new section inside Dissenting Academics about Henry Grove. If I can help you on that, please let me know. Morris (talk with this worm) 07:18, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

@Morrisworm: Well, not going to happen. If you don't accept what I'm saying, you can read WP:BEFORE and then set up a discussion at WP:AFD. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:24, 24 July 2026 (UTC)