Henry Thomas Buckle

Henry Thomas Buckle, 1857
Association	United Kingdom
Born	November 24, 1821 Lee , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Died	May 29, 1862 Damascus
Best Elo rating	2584 (September 1848) ( historical rating )

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

Life

The son of a wealthy shipowner and businessman was so sickly as a child that he was unable to attend school or a later university education. Instead, Buckle acquired extensive knowledge that was impressive to his contemporaries through persistent self-taught work.

After the death of his father in January 1840, who left him with a considerable inheritance, he and his mother went on a continental trip until 1844. The following 16 years he devoted himself intensively to historical studies.

In 1858 he gave the only lecture of his life at the Royal Institution in London . The theme was The Influence of Women on the Advancement of Knowledge ; it was printed as an essay in Fraser's Magazine that same year . Buckle's Essay on Liberty appeared in 1859 .

Buckle took over his health at work, especially on the 2nd volume. His German translator Arnold Ruge wrote: This second part killed him. He had overworked himself . After publication of the work in 1861 he undertook a recreational trip to Egypt and Palestine , where he, after initially good recovery in Jerusalem , in Nazareth , a fever seized fever. He succumbed to this a few days later in Damascus .

plant

In 1851 Buckle began work on his major work, the History of Civilization in England (English: History of Civilization in England , 1858), which appeared in the first volume in 1857. The second part of his History of Civilization in England was completed in 1861 , the analysis of the social stratification of Scotland is relevant to this day. He followed the influence of Auguste Comte . The intellectual and technical development was considered to be the "great lever of culture".

There were many translations, such as into Japanese in 1874.

Meyers Konversations-Lexikon 1888 judged the history , which is influenced by philosophical positivism : The work, which incidentally was rather informal, caused a tremendous sensation and a lively discussion. Admirable are the diligence of the research, the great reading, the penetrating acumen, the philosophical disposition with which B. tries to find out and establish the general law everywhere; but also the one-sidedness and the doctrinal exaggeration with which he applies the law of causality in a materialistic sense to all processes of history, without allowing the moment of freedom to come into its own. The psychological consideration disappears before the empirically obtained natural law of the strictest causality, in relation to which the individual is nothing.

His work influenced sociology more than history.

chess

Buckle was also passionate about the game of chess until 1856 , which he mastered at a master level. During his continental trip he met the best German players in Berlin in 1843 , against whom he achieved good results. Adolf Anderssen certified Buckle an above-average talent and praised his playing strength. In 1847 Buckle won in London against Henry Edward Bird with 9: 7 (+9 = 0 −7), in 1848 in Paris against Lionel Kieseritzky with 4.5: 3.5 (+3 = 3 −2) and in 1851 in London against Johann Jacob Löwenthal with 5: 2 (+5 = 0 −2). In the same year he won a tournament in the London chess café The Divan .

Works

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

literature

• Alfred Thomas Huth: The Life and Writings of HT Buckle , 2 vols., Sampson Low & Co., London 1880
• Giles St. Aubyn: A Victorian Eminence , Barrie Books, London 1958
• Venanzio Laudi: Buckle: ritratto inedito di un dilettante [Buckle: Unpublished portrait of an amateur], Messaggerie Scacchistiche, Brescia 1994 (Italian)
• Eckhardt Fuchs : Henry Thomas Buckle: Historiography and Positivism in England and Germany, Leipzig 1994

Web links

Commons : Henry Thomas Buckle  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Wikiquote: Henry Thomas Buckle  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Henry Thomas Buckle in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography and Quotes (English)
• Entry in the Classic Encyclopedia ( Memento from January 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
• Tomlinson, Charles (1891). Henry Buckle as a Chess Player : Part 1 ( Memento from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Part 2 ( Memento from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). ( PDF ; 62 kB). Chesscafe.com. (English)