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1999.07.13: 
Question:
    Jeremy Gaige’s encyclopedia of chess players is certainly the most comprehensive and exact source of biographical data on chess players past and present. As far as I can see it is also the basis for most of the data one can find in Chess Base 7.0.  Unfortunately there are a few names not mentioned by Gaige.  Can  anyone give information (first name, date of birth, date of death) concerning the following players?
    1) BRODIE (born in Budapest, died in Bratislava). He played in the first international tournament in London 1851 and lost against Staunton (0:2) in the first round.
    2) DIDIER (first name: “M.”). He played in Paris 1900 (16-17th place) and Monte Carlo 1901 (14th place).
    3) WILSON (“Dr. Wilson”). He played in Bristol 1861.
    4) JACOB or JAKOB (first name: “Fr. G.”).  He participated in Munich 1900 (16 th) and 1908 Düsseldorf (9-12th).  According to the tournament book he came from Mulhouse (German: Muehlhausen).
    5) TROTT (first name: “H. G.” or “A. H.”).  He played in Beverwijk 1953 (11-12th = last place).
    Many thanks in advance and best wishes from Germany.
Roland Arbinger (arbinger@zepf.uni-landau.de)
Answer:
    1) Brodie, Alfred.   The forename is given in the list of subscribers to the 1851 tournament, published in Chess Player’s Chronicle 1851 p.282.   He was a member of St. George’s Club, London (see Schachzeitung 1851 p.234).  He and Kennedy were last-minute substitutes for Jaenisch and Schumov, whose arrival was expected ‘any minute’.   It is not clear to me from where Mr. Arbinger found the Hungarian connection.   Not from Magyar Sakkttörténet, for example.
    2)  Didier.   I suggest that ‘M’ is for ‘Monsieur’, rather than a first name.
    3)  Dr. Wilson ‘of Clay Cross’ played in many mid-19th century British tournaments.   His death was reported on p.6 of the very first issue of BCM, January 1881, with no details.   A note in Chess Monthly, December 1880, p.107, is equally uninformative.   After much searching in official records I found that he was William John Wilson, L.R.C.P., and died in Brighton on 19 November 1880, aged 50.   A newspaper said he was 46 when he died, but I believe that 50 is correct.
    4)  Jacob is indeed something of a mystery.   D. Wochenschach 1900, spells his name either way, and says on p.239 that he was from Vienna, but in the index gives Strassburg i.E. (viz. im Elsass - the French Alsace).   The same magazine has him still there in 1907, when he played in the Ostend master tournament.   He had to leave prematurely, following a death in his family.   By 1908 he is firmly Friedrich Jakob, and from Mülhausen i.E.
    5)  Trott, Arthur H.   He played in many tournaments in the early 1950s, e.g. beating Teschner at Southsea 1951.   A group photograph in BCM 1952 p.163 includes him.   From my memories of him I would say that he was born in 1930, or thereabouts.   He played for (and was champion of) the Metropolitan Club in the early 1950s, and defeated Alexander in an interesting brevity on 19 March 1951.
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