Captain William Davies Evans (27 January 1790 – 3 August 1872) was a seafearer and inventor, though he is best known today as a chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player. He is buried at the Belgian port of Ostend

Ostend

Ostend  is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke , Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast....

.

Early life

Evans was born at St Dogwell

Wolf's Castle

Wolfscastle also spelt Wolf's Castle, is a village in Pembrokeshire, between Haverfordwest and Fishguard, in southwest Wales.- Geography and transport links :...

s, Pembrokeshire

Pembrokeshire

Pembrokeshire is a county in the south west of Wales. It borders Carmarthenshire to the east and Ceredigion to the north east. The county town is Haverfordwest where Pembrokeshire County Council is headquartered....

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. It is almost certain that young Evans went to Haverfordwest Grammar School, the only school of any antiquity in Pembrokeshire. About the beginning of the century the family moved to Castle Pill, the name of an inlet of Milford Haven on the north side, just east of Milford town. By 1818, he had learnt the moves of chess.

Early career

At the age of 14, (in 1804) Evans went out to sea to serve his country in the navy until 1815, when the war ended.
He was then transferred to the postal department; by 1819, he had reached the title of Captain of the sailing packet.

Inventions

His most famous invention was the tri-coloured lighting on naval vessels designed to prevent collisions at night. For this invention he was awarded £1500 by the British government and a gold chronometer and £200 from the Tsar of Russia.

He is most well known today in chess circles as the creator of the Evans Gambit

Evans Gambit

The Evans Gambit is a chess opening characterised by the moves:The gambit is named after the Welsh sea Captain William Davies Evans, the first player known to have employed it. The first game with the opening is considered to be Evans - McDonnell, London 1827, although in that game a slightly...

(1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4).