Henry Thomas Buckle

Henry Thomas Buckle ( * November 24, 1821 in Lee, Kent; † May 29, 1862 in Damascus ) was an English historian and one of the best English chess player of his time.

Life and work

Buckle, the son of a wealthy ship owner and merchant, was sickly as a child, so that neither a school nor a university education later it became possible. Buckle lent itself instead in persistent self-taught an extensive work, his contemporaries impressive knowledge of.

After the death of his father in January 1840, who had come to him a substantial inheritance, he went with his mother until 1844 a Continental trip. He devoted the next 16 years, intensive historical studies.

In 1851 he began work on his major work, the History of Civilization in England (Eng. History of Civilisation in England, 1858), which appeared in 1857 in the first volume.

In 1858 he gave at the Royal Institution in London, the only course of his life. Theme was the influence of women on the progress of knowledge and was printed in the same year as the essay in Fraser 's Magazine. Appeared in 1859 Buckles Essay on Liberty.

The second part of his History of Civilization in England was completed in 1861, but seems to have taken Buckle health in this work. His German translator Arnold Ruge wrote: this second part has killed him. He had overworked. After publication of the work he undertook a recreation trip to Egypt and Palestine, where he, after an initially good recovery in Jerusalem, Nazareth fell upon a strong typhoid fever. This, he died a few days later in Damascus.

About the history, which is under great influence of philosophical positivism ruled Meyers Lexicon 1888: The way rather informally scale work aroused tremendous sensation and a lively discussion. Admirable are the diligence of research, wide reading, the penetrating acumen, the philosophical system with which B. everywhere to find out the general law and determine investigated; but not less are the one-sidedness and the doctrinal exaggeration, which he applies to all operations of the story the law of causality in a materialistic sense, without letting go the element of freedom into its own. The psychological consideration disappears before the law of nature empirically strict causality, against which the individual is nothing.

Chess

Buckle had until 1856 and dedicated to the game of chess passionately, which he controlled master level. During his continental travels, he met in 1843 in Berlin on Germany's best player against which he was highly successful. Adolf Anderssen certified Buckle above-average talent and praised his skill level. 1847 won Buckle in London against Henry Edward Bird 9-7 ( 9-7 = 0), in 1848 in Paris against Lionel Kieseritzky with 4.5 to 3.5 ( 3-2 = 3) and in London in 1851 to Johann Jacob Loewenthal 5-2 ( 5-2 = 0). In the same year he won a tournament in the London Chess Cafe The Divan.

Works

• History of Civilization in England, 2 vol. , J. W. Parker & Son: London 1857-1861
• The Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle, eds Helen Taylor, 3 vol. , London 1872