Popert, Wilhelm




Ratings

Year       Rank    Edo    Dev.   Games 
1841  2563 (66) 25
1842  2552 (70) 12
1843  2544 (80) 2

Rating table notes

Biographical data
Name: Popert, Wilhelm Meyer  
   Also known as: William M. Popert
Born: 1796
Died: 1846
 
Notes:
Sarah, and Hooper and Whyld, give a tentative death date of 1844 (though possibly later). Gaige gives date of death only as '1840s'. His name is given as 'Popper' once by de Saint-Amant (Le Palamède, 1836, p.187). Sergeant, Gaige, Utterberg and Hooper and Whyld all give his name as 'H.W. Popert', the initials being taken from the subscription list to William Greenwood Walker's book on the de la Bourdonnais - McDonnell match. John Townsend in his Notes on the Life of Howard Staunton (p.44), and Historical Notes on Some Chess Players (p.8) makes a concrete identification of this player from the records of the London Chess Club as a 'William M. Popert' and mentions the possibility that the initial 'H.' in Walker's book simply meant 'Herr'. The 1841 census lists this Popert as 'a foreign-born 44-year-old merchant living in Fenchurch Street, in the parish of St. Dionis Backchurch, London' (Notes on the Life of Howard Staunton, p.44). This would suggest a birth year of either 1796 or 1797. Thomas Niessen has found an announcement dated 20 Dec. 1846 of the death of a Wilhelm Meyer Popert in Hamburg. This seems likely to be the chess-playing William M. Popert. Niessen also found records from Hamburg for a Wolf(f) Meyer Popert who was born 19 Mar. 1795 and died 3 Sep. 1846, who he identifies as the same person, though this identification seems less certain.
 
References
Books
   Gaige, Chess Personalia, page 336
   Harding, Eminent Victorian Chess Players, page 40, 355
   Hooper and Whyld, Oxford Companion (1st ed.), page 324
   Hooper and Whyld, Oxford Companion (2nd ed.), page 314
   Sergeant, Century of British Chess, page 50
   Townsend, Historical Notes on Players, page 8
   Townsend, Notes on Staunton, page 44
   Utterberg, De la Bourdonnais versus McDonnell, page 326, 349
   Walker, Chess Studies, page xi
   Walker, A Selection of Games at Chess, page 279
Periodicals
   [BLL], 17 Jan. 1836, page 3
   [BLL], 16 Oct. 1836, page 4
   [BLL], 11 Sep. 1842, page 2
   [BLL], 30 Apr. 1843, page 2
   [BLL], 14 Dec. 1845, page 3
   [CPC], vol. 8, no. 25, 19 June 1847, page 192
   [CPC], vol. 12, no. 4, Apr. 1851, page 122
   [CPC], vol. 4, no. 4, Apr. 1856, page 125
   [CW], vol. 3, no. 3, June 1867, page 100
   [DSZ], vol. 2, 1847, page 39
   [Era], vol. 29, no. 1482, 17 Feb. 1867, page 14
   [GWT], 7 Jan. 1867
   [ILN], vol. 26, no. 736, 14 Apr. 1855, page 347
   [Pal], vol. 1, no. 5, 15 July 1836, page 187
   [Pal], vol. 1, no. 7, 15 Sep. 1836, page 233
   [Pal], vol. 2, no. 11, 15 Jan. 1838, page 481
   [Phil], vol. 1, no. 3, Feb. 1838, page 118
   [SZ], vol. 1, no. 5, Nov. 1846, page 160
   [SZ], vol. 2, no. 4, Apr. 1847, page 117
Web
   Murray, H.J.R.  [Howard Staunton by H.J.R. Murray]
   Niessen, Thomas.  [W.M. Popert - ein 'verschollener' Begründer hanseatischer Schachtradition]
   Sarah.  [An American Tragedy]
   Sarah.  [Charles Henry Stanley]
   Sarah.  [State of Chess in 1838]
   [Wolf Meyer Popert]

Match data  (f=formal; c=casual; s=soft)

Staunton, H. - Popert, W.M. 1841         (f)     13   -   12
Horwitz, B. - Popert, W.M. 1842         (f)     6   -   6
Popert, W.M. - Alexandre, A. 1843         (s)     2   -   0


Player information updated: 3 Jun. 2023