Arthur Wynne (June 22, 1871January 14, 1945) was the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

-born inventor of the modern

crossword puzzle A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the ans ...

Early life

Arthur Wynne was born on June 22, 1871, in

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

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, and lived on Edge Lane for a time. His father was the editor of the local newspaper, the ''

Liverpool Mercury The ''Liverpool Mercury'' was an English newspaper that originated in Liverpool, England. As well as focusing on local news, the paper also reported on both national and international news allowing it to circulate in Lancashire, Wales, Isle of Man ...

''. He emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

on June 6, 1891, at the age of 19,Declaration of Intention o become a naturalized US citizendated March 21, 1917, New Jersey State Archives settling for a time in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

."Arthur Wynne, o Desconhecido Ilustre"

Career

While in Pittsburgh, Wynne worked on the ''

Pittsburgh Press ''The Pittsburgh Press'' (formerly ''The Pittsburg Press'' and originally ''The Evening Penny Press'') was a major afternoon daily newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1884 to 1992. At one time, the ''Press'' was the second larg ...

'' newspaper and played the violin in the

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.U.P. obituary dated January 15, 1945. He later moved to

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and worked on the ''

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under pub ...

'' newspaper. He is best known for the invention of the

in 1913, when he was a resident of

Cedar Grove, New Jersey Cedar Grove is a township in north central Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township's population was 12,411, reflecting an increase of 111 (+0.9%) from the 12,300 counted in the 2000 Census, w ...

.Jaegar, Philip Edward (2000). ''Cedar Grove''. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. Wynne created the page of puzzles for the "Fun" section of the Sunday edition of the ''New York World''. For the December 21, 1913, edition, he introduced a puzzle with a diamond shape and a hollow center, with the letters F-U-N already being filled in. He called it a "Word-Cross Puzzle."Augarde, Tony (2003). ''The Oxford Guide to Word Games''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . Although Wynne's invention was based on earlier puzzle forms, such as the word diamond, he introduced a number of innovations (e.g. the use of horizontal and vertical lines to create boxes for solvers to enter letters). He subsequently pioneered the use of black squares in a symmetrical arrangement to separate words in rows and columns. With the exception of the numbering scheme, the form of Wynne's "Word-Cross" puzzles is that used for modern crosswords. A few weeks after the first "Word-Cross" appeared, the name of the puzzle was changed to "Cross-Word" as a result of a typesetting error. Wynne's puzzles have been known as "crosswords" ever since.

Later life and death

Arthur Wynne became a

naturalized US citizen Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...

in the 1920s.U.S. Census 1920, 1930 He died in

Clearwater, Florida Clearwater is a city located in Pinellas County, Florida, United States, northwest of Tampa and St. Petersburg. To the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and to the southeast lies Tampa Bay. As of the 2020 census, the city had a popu ...

, on January 14, 1945.

Legacy

On December 20, 2013, he was honored with an interactive

Google Doodle A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...

commemorating th
"100th anniversary of the first crossword puzzle"
ref> with a puzzle by

Merl Reagle Merl Harry Reagle (January 5, 1950 – August 22, 2015) was an American crossword constructor. For 30 years, he constructed a puzzle every Sunday for the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' (originally the ''San Francisco Examiner''), which he syndicated ...

. Numerous other constructors also create
tribute puzzles to Wynne
to commemorate the anniversary.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wynne, Arthur 1871 births 1945 deaths People from Cedar Grove, New Jersey Puzzle designers Crossword compilers Writers from Liverpool Naturalized citizens of the United States English expatriates in the United States