George Atwood was born in London, October, 1745. He was an English mathematician and lecturer at Cambridge. In 1776, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. William Pitt, British Prime Minister, was one of Atwood's former students. He gave Atwood a position as a personal secretary and an office in the Treasury. In the 1784, he created the Atwood machine for verifying experimentally the laws of acceleration of motion. Atwood is best known for his work A Treatise on the Rectilinear Motion and Rotation of Bodies, a textbook on Newtonian mechanics.
In 1787, he joined the London Chess Club. At the club, from 1787 to 1800, he recorded his own games and the games of others, including Francois Philidor. This was not a common practice at the time. On June 20, 1795, he took part in Philidor's last blindfold performance.
In 1798, he defeated Joseph Wilson in a match (3-0). In 1799 he again defeated Wilson, (3-0).
When George Atwood passed away on July 11, 1807, he left his chess notebook to Joseph Wilson. When Wilson passed away in 1833, Atwood's notebook was bought by George Walker. In 1835, Walker, based on Atwood's chess notebook, wrote Selection of Games at Chess, actually played by Philidor and his Contemporaries, published in London. The book contained 47 of Philidor's games.
Wikipedia article: George Atwood
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