George Edward Horton Bellingham's talent for chess became apparent at an early age. In 1889 he joined the Dudley Chess Club, and lost only one game for them in his first year of his membership.
By the time he was 21, he already had an impressive record. He had won some small tournaments (being Champion of Worcestershire 1895-96), had successfully played 8 games blindfold simultaneously, achieved second prize in the correspondence tourney of the Dublin Mail and conducted his own chess column in the Dudley Herald for three years.
source: The Chess Bouquet by F.R. Gittins, London 1897.
About 1896 he joined the City of London Chess Club, and between 1897 and 1903 he has been selected seven times to play in the Anglo-American cable matches, where he scored +1, -2, =4.
In preparation for the cable match in 1900 he contested a 9-game match with Amos Burn, which was suspended after 8 games, when Bellingham led 4,5:3,5. The final game was played in January 1901, ended drawn, and hence Bellingham won 5:4 (there are other reports stating that the whole match was drawn, but their authors wrongly added a game from a team event to that match).
source: Several reports in chess magazine and in particular Amos Burn: A Chess Biography by Richard Forster, MacFarland 2004, p 509.
Bellingham was a frequent contributor to the game department of the British Chess Magazine.
source: E.g., the British Chess Magazine of 1906.
He was admitted as a solicitor in 1898 and practised mainly in Wimbledon, where he was also a Town Councillor. He occasionally appeared in connection with legal cases in the press, but two of them are quite unusual. In October 1923 he was the victim of one of his clients, who forced him to execute a cheque for £200 and hit him with a walking-stick (resulting in 4 years' penal servitude).
The second case from 1938 shows that Bellingham's later years were not lucky ones. He was arrested at Tadcaster, near Leeds, where he had been living in a caravan under the name of "Smith". Afterwards he was committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court, where he was accused of the fraudulent conversion of clients' money in 1932. It turned out that the death of his wife and an illness made him retire from his duties, and he was found Not Guilty.
source: The Times of November 17, 1923.
source: The Times of July 29, August 19 and September 8, 1938.
Kibitzing
