William Lewis (chess player)

[2] Born in Birmingham, William Lewis moved as a young man to London where he worked for a merchant for a short period.

He suggested to Johann Maelzel that Peter Unger Williams, a fellow ex-student of Sarratt, should be the next person to operate inside the machine.

[4] Lewis visited Paris along with Scottish player John Cochrane in 1821, where they played with Alexandre Deschapelles, receiving the advantage of pawn and move.

[5] Lewis' career as an author began at this time, and included translations of the works of Greco and Carrera, published in 1819[6] and 1822[7] respectively.

He was declared bankrupt in 1827 due to bad investments on a patent for the construction of pianos and his chess club was forced to close.

[11] The works of Lewis (together with his teacher Sarratt) were oriented towards the rethinking of the strictly Philidorian principles of play in favour of the Modenese school of Del Rio, Lolli and Ponziani.

[12] When he realised that he could not give an advantage to the new generation of British players, Lewis withdrew gradually from active play[1] (in the same way that Deschapelles did after his defeat against De La Bourdonnais).