Charles Tomlinson

 Charles Tomlinson (27 November 1808-15 February 1897)

When a bourgeois chess culture began to emerge in the first half of the 19th century, the first clubs were founded and the first chess columns appeared in newspapers, Charles Tomlinson (27 November 1808-15 February 1897), who was born 200 years ago, was one of the pioneers of chess publication. After publishing articles for the Saturday Magazine for several years, he published a book entitled Amusement in Chess (London 1845), which was intended to be both entertaining and instructive in keeping with the taste of the time and, in addition to games and problems, also highlighted the cultural aspect of chess. Professionally, Tomlinson was an exceptionally versatile scholar in Victorian England who published around 50 books and many scientific articles; a detailed essay on his life and work, in which his chess activities are also briefly mentioned, appeared in 2004 in the Notes and Records of the Royal Society (Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 58 (2), 203-226 (2004)) and can be downloaded as a PDF file from the Internet.