Angus Glyn Burnett

20 May 1917 - 8 August 1980, Edinburgh

Angus Burnett was born in Tianjin (then called Tienstin) in northern China. His father Beni Burnett, the son of Scottish and Welsh missionaries, was born in the Ordos region of Mongolia in 1889. His mother was Florence Draper-Bentley, the daughter of an Australian mariner employed on the Yangtze River.

In 1930 his parents separated. His mother took Angus and his older brother, John, to Edinburgh. The lived at 31 Sciennes Road (19030) and attended George Heriot's School. Angus Burnett later joined the Civil Service, and was a member of the Civil Service CC.

• Scottish Boys' Champion 1931, 1933 (shared) & 1934
• played in the World Record Blindfold Display by Koltanowski at Edinburgh 1937.
• member of Civil Service CC team that reached the final of the Richardson Cup in 1937 and 1939.
• narrowly lost a training match with Dr J.M. Aitken in 1939 by 1½-2½.
• distinguished himself in several Scottish championships, including a tie with Fairhurst in the Scottish Championship 1947, though losing the play-off.
• played in the Scotland v England 1951 match.

He had several addresses in Edinburgh: in 1939-40 he lived at 41 Newington Road. In 1945 he resided at 13 Henderson Row, and in later years he was at 64 Relugas Road.

In 1943 Mr Burnett married Grace Jackson in Edinburgh.

Jonathan A.G. Burnett, son of Angus Burnett, has kindly provided some personal details about his father.

In post- war Edinburgh he seems to have been quite involved with the Civil Service Drama Company.

He worked from around 1960 at the Forestery Commision in Dumfries having (I believe) been working, at the Map Office in Edinburgh. The family home was in Kirkbean on the Solway.

The final five years of his life were marred by serious medical issues; one leg was amputed as a result of a blood clot forming during an operation to remove a cancerous tumour. However, he still managed to lead a fairly active life, which included walking our seventeen wire-fox and lakeland terriers. (Up to six at a time. He was a serious dog-breeder but we ended up with all the runts of the litters...he resigned from the Kennel Club when they accepted Jack Russells as a  legitimate breed!)

Mr Burnett died 8 August 1980 in Edinburgh. His mother had died a short time before on 10 May, also in Edinburgh.

Sources:
Thanks to David Bridgman, an Australian architect, for the correct details of Mr Burnett's date and place of birth. Mr Bridgman (as of July 2016) was preparing his doctoral thesis on the life and work of Beni Burnett, Mr Burnett's father.
ScotlandsPeople (National Records)
Ancestry.com

Alan McGowan
Historian/Archivist, Chess Scotland

revised 21/11/2020