Norman van Lennep

Norman Willem van Lennep (20 September 1872 – 29 September 1897) was a Dutch chess master.

Born into a wealthy family in Amsterdam, he dropped out of education early, and in 1893, at the age of 20 became a secretary of the Dutch Chess Federation and an editor of its magazine. In 1893 he drew two matches with Rudolf Loman (+2 –2 =0 and +1 –1 =1) and won a match against Arnold van Foreest (+3 –0 =2). He won at Leipzig 1894 (the 9th DSB Congress, Hauptturnier A),^[1] and took 5th at Rotterdam 1894 (Loman won).

Mr. van Lennep’s fame had preceded him when he came to England, in August 1895, as the selected reserve of the chess masters who had entered for the Hastings 1895 chess tournament. He stayed on as a journalist, filing reports on the tournament for his magazine. Suddenly, an announcement was made that Van Lennep has decided to stay in England. The letters he wrote to his parents from England have survived. It seems that he was exiled by his father, who, unhappy with his involvement with chess, wanted him to settle down, find a steady job and get married. But the idea of office life did not appeal to young Norman, nor did he feel any attraction towards the opposite sex.^[2]

Finally, he returned to Holland, won followed by L.D. Tresling, D. Bleijkmans and A. van Foreest at Amsterdam 1897,^[3] and killed himself, jumping into the North Sea, at the age of 25.^[4]

References

1. ^ German Chess Congresses
2. ^ http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~rjcc/corn46.htm
3. ^ http://www.anders.thulin.name/SUBJECTS/CHESS/CTCIndex.pdf Name Index to Jeremy Gaige's Chess Tournament Crosstables, An Electronic Edition, Anders Thulin, Malmö, 2004-09-01
4. ^ http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter28.html

External links

• Norman van Lennep player profile at ChessGames.com

Persondata
Name	Lennep, Norman van
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	20 September 1872
Place of birth
Date of death	29 September 1897
Place of death