English Chess Forum

A quick peep at the confusion - promoted here not at all - caused by Robert Robinson and Robert Robinson having the same name. Some recommendations offered also. The obituary of Sir RR appeared in BCM in 1975 and is most touching. These days, at least in my opinion, these things are dealt with correctly.
https://www.youtube.com/live/654teJjPhz ... T6bIJlZmB5
James

James, you too appear to be confused. The author of the 1950 book about Bird's Opening, R E Robinson, is not the same as Sir Robert Robinson, the Nobel prize-winning chemist who co-wrote the Batsford chess book with Ray Edwards in the 1970s, though they both happen to be called Robert and were born around the same time. The chemist did not have a middle name.

I'm not sure anyone has taken the trouble to research R E Robinson before so I thought I would do some digging. He was called Robert Ernest Robinson, born on 19 December 1884 (possibly in Sunderland), went to grammar school in Plymouth (where his father was a journalist on the staff of the Western Morning News) and died in London on 12 September 1972. (The probate record showed his residence as 21 Neville Road, London W5, which tallied with what appeared in the Belfast Newsletter for 27 September 1950. It told us the book was self-published and could be obtained from the address above.) One or two other snippets about him - pre-war he was a member of the City of London CC (Edward Winter mentions him in some Chess Notes entries) and post-war he was a member of the Lud-Eagle club and vice-president of the GPO club which played in the Civil Service League. The book received generally favourable reviews in both BCM and CHESS, plus several mentions in regional newspaper chess columns, demonstrating that Robinson went to some lengths to publicise it.

R E Robinson's name also appears in Kevin Thurlow's book A History of Chess in the English Civil Service (2021), turning out for the Civil Service team on board 19 vs West of England in 1946. More to the point, Kevin also covers the story of the 1 P-KB4 book in considerable detail, telling us that the MS was originally submitted by Robinson to BH Wood in 1948 and accepted for publication but that later difficulties arose and Robinson ended up having to self-publish. It is an interesting story well told by Kevin.

My favourite Robert Robinson was Robert Henry Robinson who regularly asked things of families as well as calling people's bluff.

Sir Robert Robinson was well known to me (by his work and reputation) from my O-level, A-level, S-level and undergraduate studies of organic chemistry and his rather lovely symbol for Benzene. At Sussex I was persuaded by a lady friend (now a Professor) to turn my back on "cooking" as she called it or "wet chemistry" as KT might refer to it in favour of Chemical Physics and Theoretical Chemistry. This advice was triggered by me scoring the highest in the year for "Atomic and Molecular Structure".

It is worth noting that one of Sir Robert Robinson's doctoral students was none other than Sir John "Kappa" Warcup Cornforth Jr. who regularly decamped from the nearby Agricultural Research Council (ARC) Nitrogen Fixation Unit at The University of Sussex to appear in the MOLS Common Room. His order for tea and scones could be heard by the entire room as he bellowed it out.

I am humbled by both Johns!
James