Born in April of 1810, in Westmoreland, England, Staunton was the illegitimate son of an English Earl. His earliest career was that of a Shakespearean actor.
It's known that he became interested in chess by age 26 when he subscribed to William Walker's collection of Alexander McDonnell's games (McDonnell, an Irishman,  played and lost a quite famous match against the French champion,  Louis Charles de Labourdonnais.)
He joined the Old Westminster Chess Club where he lost games to Captain W.D. Evans, creator of the famous Evan's Gambit.
He also edited England's first successful chess magazine, the Chess Player's Chronicle.
      In the spring of 1843 he lost a closely contested matchagainst Saint-Amant, the unofficial world champion. Staunton played Amantagain in the fall of 1843 at the Frenchman's home turf, the Cafe de laRegenceof Paris, solidly defeating him. During this match, Staunton displayed the power of the opening, 1.c4, the English Opening, as it would be called from then on. Staunton was now the unofficial world Champion.
He had many other achievements in his life:

• In 1849, Staunton approved the manufacture (by his brother-in-law,John Jacques) a particular style of chess pieces designed by Nathaniel Cook . He endorsed these sets and had "Staunton and Jacques" stamped on each box. These became the Staunton sets, the most popular design for chess pieces ever since.
• He became the chess columnist for the Illustrated London News, a position he held for 29 years.....until he died.
• He edited a monthly chess magazine called The Chess World
• He defeated both Harrwitz and  Horwitz in match play
• He organized the first international chess tournament (won by Anderssen) in 1851.
• He published  the Chess-Player's Handbook, The ChessPlayer's Text Book and The Chess Player's Companion,
• He was the leading Shakespearean scholar of his day and wrote an annotated edition of Shakespeare's plays, published in monthly installments
• Staunton pre-dated the internet by playing the first chess game by telegraph (between Gosport and London, April, 1845)...before the first commercial telegraph system had been established.
• He wrote a book called, Chess Praxis, that devoted 168 pages to Morphy's games.
• He assisted in standardizing the rules of chess.
• He died in 1874 while working on another chess book. On his tombstoneat Kensal Green, England, it says simply: Howard Staunton 1810-1874 , above a large etching of a knight .

All these great accomplishments by this great man have been overshadowed by a peculiar set of circumstances involving his refusal to play Paul Morphy despite all indications he made to the contrary and his subsequent treatment of Morphy, misusing his stature as a publisher and the leading chess authority.