BCPS

Comins Mansfield, the greatest British composer of directmate two-movers, was born on 14th June 1896 at Witheridge, Devon. He came to prominence during the Good Companions era (1913-24), and many of his early masterpieces were made while serving with the Royal Field Artillery in the trenches of France.

Throughout a problem career spanning seven decades he remained the master of the “traditional” style of two-mover where the interest lies in the post-key play, though his ventures into the realm of try play problems produced a number of memorable works. In 1944 he published Adventures in Composition, an attempt to teach the art of two-move composition.

Mansfield held the post of President of the BCPS between 1949 and 1951. He served as President of the FIDE Problem Commission between 1963 and 1971, and was one of the first four composers to be awarded the title of Grandmaster of the FIDE for Chess Composition in 1972. He died on 28th March 1984. The three-volume work Complete Mansfield, by Barry Barnes, contains his complete output of almost 1200 problems.