BCN remembers IMCC Barry Barnes who passed away on Tuesday, January 14th 2025 aged 87.
Barry Peter Barnes was born in Brighton on August 1st 1937 and his mother’s maiden name was Simpole. (Barry was a cousin of Julian Ivan Peter Simpole, who was a Brighton school teacher and who taught Edward Gerard Winter to play chess).
Barry most recently lived in Halling, Rochester, Kent with his wife Jean.
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976) by Anne Sunnucks :
“International Master of FIDE for Chess Compositions (1967) and International Judge of FIDE for Chess Compositions (1967).
Born on 1st August 1937, Barnes works in transport advertising. He has composed about 250 two-move problems. With Lipton and Rice, he has contributed to the advance of the modern two-mover. Problem Editor of Two-Move and Twin sections of The Problemist. Co-author with M.Lipton and JM Rice of The Two-Move Chess Problem : Tradition and Development (Faber and Faber 1966).
“A promising career as a county chess player came to an end when I was given Brian Harley’s classic book Mate in Two Moves in the belief that it would help my chess, but it had quite the opposite effect. My interest in competitive chess waned, and I was on the road to an an International Master title for problems!
Early influences in my problem career were the weekly chess problem solving competition in The Observer (my first problem published there was in 1955), a teenage friendship with J. M. Rice and M. Lipton (both now lnternational Masters), Herbert Grasemann’s book Problem Schach / with its near revolutionary post-war German problem ideas, and the expert British problemist, A. R. Gooderson who had I but known it only a few years earlier was the officiating master when my Hove Grammar School played Steyning Grammar at chess.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the genuinely original problems I was making in cooperation and in competition with Rice and Lipton were being published mostly abroad in such specialist problem magazines as Die Schwatbe (with its inspired two-move editor, Hermann Albrecht) where I gained the epithet the English prize-snatcher’! It was also written that the work of the avant-garde composers, Rice, Lipton and Barnes, was like a fresh two-move wind blowing from our island. It was sad but true at that time that the specialist magazine of the British Chess problem Society (founded 1918), The problemist, was unreceptive to change and our often bizarre ideas.
A milestone of sorts was reached when I won lst prize for problem I in 1958, a prize for the best new problem by a member of the British Commonwealth aged under 21. In 1966, I was invited by problemist Grandmaster Comins Mansfield, who was President of the FIDE Problem Commission, to act as Secretary at the Barcelona meeting. With Mr. Mansfield’s retirement, I became the British Member to the Commission, and at the Wiesbaden meeting, 1974, I was elected 2nd Vice-President. (1st Vice-President from 1982)
The FIDE Problem Commission meets annually to discuss matters relating to all branches of problem chess, to organize the World Chess Composing Tournament (WCCT), the World Chess Solving Competition (WCSC), and to publish FIDE Album anthologies of the best problems. It was on the strength of my success in these FIDE Albums that the Commission granted me the titles in 1967 of ‘lnternational Master of the FIDE for Chess Composition’ and ‘lnternational Judge of the FIDE for Chess Composition’. Since 1974, I have been Chairman of the Titles Sub-Committee of the Commission.
Since 1965, I have been the two-move editor of The Problemist and have served almost without break on the BCPS Committee. I have contributed to The Encyclopaedia of Chess by Anne Sunnucks (Robert Hale, 1970), I am co-author, with J. M. Rice and M. Lipton, of The Two-Move Chess Problem: Tradition & Development‘ (Faber A Faber, 1966), and I am the sole author of Comins Mansfield MBE: Chess Problems of a Grandmaster: (British Chess Problem Society, 1976) and Pick of the Best Chess Problems (Elliot Right Way Books, 1976)
To date I have made just over 300 two-movers and some helpmates.”
From The Encyclopaedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977), Harry Golombek OBE, John Rice writes:
“British problem composer, output about 400, nearly all modern style two-movers. Two-move sub-editor of The Problemist. Secretary of the FIDE Problem Commission during C. Mansfield’s Presidency. Co-author of The Two-Move Chess Problem: Tradition and Development (1966).”
The Two Move Chess Problem : Tradition and Development
Author of Pick of the Best Chess Problems (1976)
Pick of the best Chess Problems
Comins Mansfield MBE : Chess Problems of a Grandmaster (1976).
Comins Mansfield MBE: Chess Problems of a Grandmaster, BP Barnes, 1976
International Judge (1967); international master (1967).
Source: The Problemist, May 1996. Photo taken March 1996 at the Mansfield Centenary Meeting at Paisley, when Barry Barnes delivered a lecture on Comins Mansfield. Left to right: Geoffrey Mansfield (son of Comins), Robert Gray and Barry Barnes, International Master of Chess Composition.
For several years in the 1930s, two blind players, Theodore Tylor and Rupert Cross, were amongst the competitors in the British Championship, restricted at that time to twelve players selected from the best in the country.
Tylor was a player of genuine master standard, competing with distinction against the best in the world, while Cross was a very strong county standard player. In addition, another blind player, Reginald Bonham, halfway between Tylor and Cross in age, was of similar strength to the latter, although he played most of his chess after the war. Tylor and Bonham were also formidable correspondence players, both winning the British Correspondence Championship on three occasions.
All three of these players had attended the same school, Worcester College for the Blind, where chess was promoted by their inspirational headmaster, GC Brown. This is his story.
George Clifford Brown was born on 29 May 1879, the son of a chemist and pharmacist from Brading on the Isle of Wight. His paternal grandfather, though, had been a master mariner from Yorkshire. In the 1901 census he, along with his brother John, was a pupil at Solent College in Lymington, just a short ferry ride from Yarmouth, on the other side of the Isle of Wight from Brading. By 1901 he was teaching at Shoreham Grammar School, on the Sussex coast, but he seems not to have stayed there long.
In 1902, George married Catherine Harvey Robertson Smith in Wealdstone, near Harrow, giving his profession as a schoolmaster and an address in Jersey. They would go on to have four children, Clifford (1906), Geoffrey (1909), Douglas (1911) and Joan (1913).
In 1905 something very strange seems to have happened, judging from these news items.
Western Gazette 21 April 1905Evening Standard & St James’s Gazette 05 July 1905
George’s sisters, Lilian and Muriel, ran a private school in Wealdstone called Hillside between 1900 and 1915: George might have been teaching there at some point, and might possibly, I suppose, have met Catherine there.
It seems he wasn’t suited to the world of journalism and publishing, and returned to teaching, by 1907 becoming one of the principals of Tollington Park College, a private school near Finsbury Park, in North London which had been founded by William Brown (as far as I know no relation) in 1879.
At the same time he was studying for an external degree at London University, graduating in 1910 with a second class degree in Modern European History.
University of London Student Records (ancestry.co.uk)
Here he is, and there, on his left, is Alfred Dudley Barlow, whom he would later meet over the chessboard on at least two occasions.
He was still at Tollington Park in the 1911 census, but left in 1912, in part due to young Douglas being unwell, and, in January 1913, started a new job as Headmaster of Worcester College for the Blind. A public school for boys with visual impairments, it was struggling financially at the time, and there were only five pupils there when he arrived. One of them was Theodore Tylor, who was already playing chess, and, as Brown was himself a chess enthusiast (he ran a club at his previous school) the two must have bonded.
Although he had only attended a small private school himself, Brown was a supporter of the Victorian and Edwardian Public School ethos, where excelling at games was considered almost as important as academic success. He was very keen to promote games at which the blind could compete on level terms with their sighted contemporaries, and settled on rowing and chess, which are both practised while seated. He also encouraged swimming and adaptive forms of football and cricket, and, Chris McCausland will be delighted to hear, would later introduce dancing lessons.
He soon started a chess club, encouraging all the boys to learn chess, and, by 1916, they were good enough to win the Worcestershire Public Schools Chess Championship for the first time, an event they would win on almost every occasion for more than twenty years.
The First Seventy Years: Worcester College for the Blind, 1866-1936 by Mary G Thomas
Every year a star player was invited to give a simultaneous display against the students, who were joined by players from other schools and clubs in the area.
Visiting simul givers included Alekhine, Maroczy, Réti, Kostich, Sultan Khan, Sir George Thomas, Mieses, and, in 1919, none other than Capablanca, who even lost a game to one of his sightless opponents.
Evesham Standard & West Midland Observer 01 November 1919
Here’s a photograph of the display in progress.
Chess Pie 2 (1927) via Neil Blackburn
The winner, Edward Ingram Reed (1899-1951), from Monmouthshire, who later became a solicitor, continued playing county chess, both over the board and by correspondence, until the outbreak of World War 2. He came from a working class background – his father was a platelayer on the Great Western Railway – so must have been on some sort of scholarship. What a great day this must have been for him.
He’s seated on the right in this family photograph from about 1912.
We can also identify the college chess captain Vernon Charles Grimshaw (1901-1958), a headmaster’s son from London. By 1921 he was living in Brook Green, Hammersmith, just the other side of the park from where Amos Burn would move a few years later, and playing for West London Chess Club in matches against Richmond. He later became the Assistant General Secretary of the National Federation of the Blind.
Sadly, Reed’s game hasn’t survived, but this one has. Capa’s Stourport opponent might be considered rather unlucky to lose, having had the better of things most of the game. Click on any move in any game in this article for a pop-up window.
Brown later started to be involved with chess outside the college, taking up county chess and being elected Secretary of the Worcestershire County Chess Association.
In 1924 he took part in his first tournament, entering the 1st Class B section at Weston-Super-Mare.
The results were as follows:
(1) Percival John Lawrence (Reading) 7½/9;
(2) F A Richardson (London) 7;
(3-4) Mrs. Agnes Bradley Stevenson (London), Rev. Ernest Walter Poynton (Bath) 5½;
(5) Hiram James Horace Cope (Ilfracombe) 5;
(6) George Clifford Brown (Worcester) 4;
(7) Samuel Waterman Viveash (Bristol) 3½;
(8) Ernest Fowler Fardon (Birmingham) 3;
(9) Edward Buddel Puckridge (Kent) 2½;
(10) Francis Frederick Finch (Bristol) 1½.
The clergyman from Bath beat him with some smooth positional chess.
In 1926 Alekhine visited Worcester College for a simultaneous display. George Clifford Brown put up some stiff resistance in his game, only losing control at the end of the session when his opponent would have had just a few games left.
Chess Pie 2 (1927) via Neil Blackburn
Here’s Alekhine, with Brown on his right, and young Rupert Cross on the right of Brown, with other Worcester College pupils who took part in the display.
You can read the whole Chess Pie article, along with a lot of other interesting material in this article by Neil Blackburn (simaginfan).
In the 1926-27 season Brown achieved a significant success, winning the Worcestershire County Championship, a title his pupil Tylor had won in 1923-24 and 1924-25. Another pupil, Bonham would later take the title on no less than 18 occasions between 1939-40 and 1960-61. His immediate successor, though, was former Minor Piece subject Dr Abraham Learner.
The school’s prowess at chess was recognised nationally in 1928 when they were awarded a British Chess Federation Schools Shield along with an annual medal to be awarded to the College champion.
George Clifford Brown returned to tournament chess over Easter 1929, but he finished in last place in the First Class C section at Ramsgate, won by one of the competitors in the inaugural London Boys’ Championship.
That winter Brown ventured to Hastings for the first time, scoring 3/9 in the Major B section, where he lost to his pupil Rupert Cross, and drew with the previously mentioned Alfred Barlow.
But on 19 May 1930 George Clifford Brown’s life was struck by tragedy, with the sudden death of his wife Catherine, who had, beyond her family duties, played an important role in helping her husband run the school.
The Evesham Standard (24 May 1930) paid tribute: She was a genial and charming hostess, a lady well fitted to have a kind of maternal oversight of a company of blind students, unfailingly cheerful and gracious in all sorts of circumstances, and mindful in every way of the peculiar claims which are made upon one occupying such a position. She will be greatly missed by many intimate friends, and particularly by the students and those chess players of the Midlands and West of England who were wont to gather at the College for chess matches.
This blow didn’t curb his interest in chess, which still remained popular at the school. In November a pupil, William George Coppage (1912-1985), the son of a house painter (1911) and builder (1921) scored a victory against Znosko-Borovsky.
Stratford-upon-Avon Herald 14 November 1930
George Clifford Brown was back at Hastings that New Year, with a similar result in the same section as the previous year. This time he lost to both Cross and Barlow, as well as to the winner, the future Sir Richard ‘Otto’ Clarke, who would much later devise the first British Chess Federation grading system.
On 7 February 1931 Worcester College hosted a 100 board match between Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The top 25 boards counted towards the South Midlands County Championship.
Evesham Standard & West Midland Observer 14 February 1931
You’ll notice that Brown lost to Ritson Morry on Board 9, while Bonham won his game on Board 4.
Architect Arthur Troyte Griffith, on Board 6, was a close friend of Edward Elgar (who, as a young man, had taught music at Worcester College) and the dedicatee of one of his Enigma Variations, which you can hear here conducted by another of Elgar’s great friends, Sir Adrian Boult.
Three of Brown’s children were also involved: Clifford and Geoffrey both played on lower boards, neither troubling the scorer. Their sister Joan was on hand to welcome the players and provide refreshments, also making a presentation to the Warwickshire top board to mark his forthcoming retirement to Hastings.
Warwickshire won the match by the narrowest possible margin, but, of greater significance, it was announced that the school would be hosting the British Championships that August, a considerable coup, not just for the Headmaster but for the whole school community.
The school community was well represented: Tylor played in the Championship, won by Yates, just ahead of Sultan Khan and Winter. Cross was in the Major Open, won by the young Vera Menchik, while Bonham shared third place in the Major Open Reserves, with Ritson Morry in mid-table and BH Wood bringing up the rear.
One of their students also took part: Barnet Ellis (1914-1974), born in Leeds, the son of a Ukrainian Jewish tailor, took park in the 2nd Class B section, where his opponents included future Leicester chess historian Don Gould and a young Russian boy named Rostislav Chernikeeff. Barnet later gained a 2nd Class Degree in Jurisprudence from Oxford University, going on to run a solicitor’s practice in Pickering, North Yorkshire.
The British Chess Magazine (September 1931) commented:
According to the rota it was the privilege of the Midland Counties Chess Union to hold the Congress in its area. It is fortunate that the Union had ideal opportunities of carrying out the Federation’ ambitious programme. Worcester has many attractions which appealed to the public as the large number of entries and visitors amply showed. The College for the Blind afforded the best accommodation. It is situated in a pleasant position outside the town. The various rooms and grounds were placed at the disposal of the visitors for every purpose that could be devised. The lounge and swimming pool especially were luxuries not often to be found at a Chess Congress. Above all the Union is to be congratulated upon its organising officers! A. J. Mackenzie, president of the Union, as an old hand experienced in Congresses, was probably quite at ease in leaving the arrangements in the hands of the headmaster of the College, G. C. Brown, M.A. It is only fair to state that the exceptional success of the Congress was due to the quiet organisation and to the general courtesy and welcome that was extended to every one by Mr. Brown and the members of his family and staff who outdid one another in their efforts to make things go smoothly.
You can find full details of the event, along with some games, on BritBase here.
One of Worcester College’s regular match opponents were Oxford University. In 1931 Brown faced a future multiple Scottish champion, coming away with half a point.
He was back again at Hastings, again in the Major B section, over the 1931-32 New Year, where his opponents included my distant kinsman Alfred Lenton.
Brown missed Hastings in 1932-33, but was again in the Major B section in 1933-34, where he shared last place.
He went down to a crushing defeat in this game against former Sussex champion Harold Stephenson.
The following year he made what would be his final appearance at Hastings, where he unfortunately lost all his games, but this was a pretty strong international tournament, featuring Koblents, who would later achieve fame as Tal’s coach, and the eccentric Nazi Diemer, of Blackmar-Diemer Gambit fame.
The winner was a Belgian international player who had no problem outclassing the tail-ender.
In August 1935 George Clifford Brown took part in a small tournament in Ludlow. Playing in the top section, his opponents included future chess author and historian R Nevil Coles, whom I played many years later.
Hastings and St Leonards Observer 24 August 1935
His son Geoffrey also took part, winning a prize in the Second Class section.
This was to be his last tournament. We can sum him up as a strong club and county player who was rather out of his depth when competing against stronger opposition in the 1st Class sections at Hastings and elsewhere. It’s unfortunate that I’ve only been able to find draws and losses so far: if you have the scores of any of his wins I’d love to see them.
1936 marked the 70th anniversary of the school and a book was published marking the event.
There were several mentions of chess, and, at the end, a list of the school’s chess successes.
The First Seventy Years: Worcester College for the Blind, 1866-1936 by Mary G Thomas
(The last name should be ARN Cross, not ARH Cross.)
I think that you’ll agree that these statistics are extraordinary, considering that this was a school which had only 5 (or 3, sources differ) pupils when Brown arrived, and, at its peak only 45 or so, and that they were all either totally blind or had severely limited vision.
The number who went on to study at Oxford or Cambridge, also listed in the book, is also notable, with some of them, including Bonham, the son of a butcher, and Ellis, the son of a tailor, coming from non-academic backgrounds.
George Clifford Brown was clearly an outstanding and inspirational headmaster, but by now age was catching up with him, and the strain of running the school was perhaps affecting his health. In 1938 he was forced to take early retirement.
Birmingham Daily Gazette 24 June 1938
Brown died on 16 July 1944, at the age of 65
Birmingham Mail 19 July 1944
George Clifford Brown should be remembered as a pioneer of chess for the blind as well as a devoted and popular headmaster for a quarter of a century.
In the rowing world, too, he’s remembered as a pioneer of adaptive rowing, now known as pararowing, and thus as a pioneer of the whole concept of parasports. I’m sure he’d have been delighted to see the success of the Paralympics today, but perhaps also disappointed that not more has been done to promote chess for children with visual impairments.
On the surface, and wearing my chess hat, everything seems wonderful. Brown was clearly an extraordinary man who was passionate about chess, passionate about his pupils, and passionate about helping them thrive as sightless people in a sighted world. Wearing my rowing hat, if I had one, I would no doubt reach the same conclusion.
Behind the scenes, though, there were problems, which grew more acute after Catherine Brown’s premature death in 1930.
In 1931 the school received its first full inspection since 1915. Although it was, in general, highly favourable, a few suggestions were made as to how it might improve.
There was a concern about the use of unqualified staff: Reg Bonham had recently returned after completing his Oxford degree to teach mathematics and Braille, while the Oxford Rower LCR Balding had also joined without a teaching qualification. In 1936 he would marry Joan Brown. There were also suggestions that the organisation of the school was unsatisfactory, that the curriculum was too narrow, and that the academic standards in some subjects could be improved.
It’s notable that the 1928 prospectus included eight photographs of rowing and six photographs of chess, compared with seven photographs of classrooms and one of the school play. While this was no doubt wonderful for the boys who excelled at rowing or chess, or, in the case of Rupert Cross, both, there would surely have been doubts about whether they had their priorities right, and whether they should be doing more to ensure academic success rather than training students to live the life of a leisured Edwardian gentleman. It’s a debate which is still extremely relevant today, a hundred years on.
One of the pupils who gained a lot from chess was John (surname not available) who, in 1935, wrote (I’ve corrected a few mistakes):
Foremost in winter comes the inevitable chess. This fascinating game attracts almost universal interest in the college and matches frequently take place between the college teams and other clubs including, Oxford University, Birmingham City and many others. We have also held the Worcestershire Public Schools Championship for many years, and in 1928, carried off a shield awarded by the British Chess Federation. We also compete in several other chess leagues, and it may also be noted that in the last sixteen years the college has provided Oxford University with several chess champions. Tournaments and informal instruction circles are arranged; whilst chess masters are invited to give lectures and to play the members of the school simultaneously. During my short residence here I have met over the board: Sultan Khan (former British Champion), Maroczy, Sir George Thomas (Present British Champion), TH Tylor (a well-known competitor at the Hastings Congress and an Old Boy of the college), Herr Mieses and Fräulein Sonja Graf (the girl champion of Germany).
Another growing issue was one of discipline, which could be lax at times. Brown was warm, empathetic and approachable, taking a full part himself in all school activities, and clearly being held in great affection by all his pupils. But he wasn’t a strict disciplinarian, and perhaps the boys sometimes took advantage of him.
While efforts were made to broaden the curriculum and improve academic standards, the organisational problems were not addressed, and, the school archives reveal, their financial position was gradually spiralling out of control.
In 1936 the governors, concerned about the deteriorating situation as well as Brown’s nepotism, decided to take action. Brown had expensive tastes in food and drink, which he expected the school to pay for, and the local butchers and wine merchants were owed significant amounts of money. Joan, who had been employed as his housekeeper, had her post terminated, and his son (I presume this was Geoffrey, who was involved in rowing as well as chess) lost his retainer for contributions to social activities. He was also told that his own employment would be terminated by his sixtieth birthday: in fact he left slightly earlier than that. All this must have been extremely distressing to him, but schools have to do what they need to do to survive and be successful.
What happened after his departure? Chess still continued to be prominent in the school for some time, as would be expected with Reg Bonham on the staff. Perhaps the strongest player from this period was John Anthony Wall, who represented Oxford in the 1949 and 1951 Varsity Matches before becoming Britain’s first High Court Judge.
Years later, a pupil at The King’s School Worcester, Malcolm (again surname not available), recalled his contacts with his blind contemporaries:
I was at Worcester Kings School as a boarder from 1949/58, and have memories of playing chess for the school in matches versus the College for the Blind who produced good players under the excellent guidance of Mr RW Bonham, who beat me soundly (at chess, that is!) in 26 moves in a Worcester & District league match on the 8th December 1956.
In that same 1956/57 chess season, 5 boys from the College were entered into the Worcestershire County Individual Junior Championship (Under 18s). Between them they produced one of the finalists – Jones – who lost to me on 17th March 1957 in an exciting 44 move game which started at the College on 13th December and had to be adjourned because of time.
In 1987 Worcester College merged with Chorleywood College (for girls with little or no sight) to form a new school: New College Worcester. Do they still play chess? The website mentions board games and a Scrabble club, but there’s no specific mention of chess.
George Clifford Brown was a remarkable man who, although, like all of us, he had his faults, undoubtedly transformed the lives of many boys who were blind or had limited vision during his 25 year tenure as Headmaster of Worcester College. His opinion that chess is something which can help young people with disabilities integrate into the outside world is something that we’ve perhaps forgotten today. He would, I think, be saddened to see how, a hundred years later, so few children with visual handicaps seem to play the game.
His story prompted quite a few thoughts.
In the 1930s, while the blind boys in Worcester were playing chess so successfully, you might recall that the boys from Desford Approved School near Leicester were also taking part in competitive chess with success. You can read their story here and here. Although the two schools were dealing with very different pupils, they were both using chess to help disadvantaged boys, and both run by men who were considered progressive in many ways. There’s even a family connection. George’s youngest son Douglas Brown’s wife had a brother-in-law, an auctioneer in Market Harborough, who was distantly related to Sydney Gimson via the Symington soup and corsets family. It’s a small world.
I spent some years involved with what was, at first, a small family-run school which, although open to everyone who could pay, attracted a high proportion of children who, for a variety of reasons, didn’t fit in to mainstream schools. Comparing the two schools I can see quite a lot in common: many of the same strengths, and also perhaps some of the same weaknesses.
There’s also the wider question, which I alluded to earlier, as to whether secondary schools should focus purely on academic attainment and future earning potential, or whether they also have a responsibility to provide cultural and social capital. This is discussed in indirect terms, for instance, in Alan Bennett’s play The History Boys. I suspect I know what Brown’s view would be and, on a personal level, I think I’d agree with him.
With regard to children with disabilities, to what extent should we be helping them meet other children who share their disabilities, and to what extent should we be finding ways to help them make contact with the wider world? Ideally, of course, you want to do both, but perhaps our education system could do more of the latter.
Leading on from this, should we in the chess community be doing more to use chess to help children with a variety of disabilities? One of the great aspects of chess, for me, is that it has few barriers of this nature. We’re not just talking about children with visual disabilities, but also children with auditory and physical disabilities, not to mention children diagnosed with conditions such as ASD (autism) and ADHD. On several occasions I’ve tried to arrange meetings in schools to discuss this, but have found no interest in anyone even talking to me. Perhaps the demand from within schools isn’t there, but it certainly should be. If you know me well you’ll know my views.
You’ll be meeting some of the young chess players from Worcester College again in future Minor Pieces.
Sources and Acknowledgements
If you’re interested in taking the story further, there’s a lot of material readily available online.
If your interest is specifically on the chess side, I’d recommend the three-part series written by Neil Blackburn, from which I took two of the photographs here. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
If you’re interested in the college itself, start with The First Seventy Years: Worcester College for the Blind, 1866-1936 by Mary G Thomas, which you can read online here.
Then there’s the centenary history: The Experiment in Education; the History of Worcester College for the Blind 1866-1966 by Donald Bell. You can read some of the pages here, but, for copyright reasons, not all are available.
More importantly, there’s a PhD thesis, ‘They can because they think they can?’: The education of pupils at two secondary schools for the blind, 1920-58, by Jeanette Normanton Erry (2011), which can be read online here. Jeanette, who is currently the Head of Outreach at New College Worcester, had access to the college archives, and paints a much more rounded picture of Brown than that in the official publications of the time.
Finally, there’s this page on the school website, written to celebrate the school’s 150th anniversary in 2016, from which I took the chess memories of John and Malcolm quoted above.
Other sources:
ancestry.co.uk (Reed family tree)
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
Wikipedia
BritBase (John Saunders)
New College Worcester website
YouTube
Around 330 girls have signed up to compete in 110 teams as schools from around the country gather for the UK’s biggest girls-only chess event. Entries from girls are up 13% from 2024.
“A chess boom is happening among girls and it is wonderful to see,” said Andrew Martin, International Master and FIDE Senior Trainer.
“More girls and women are taking up the game than ever before. Part of the reason is the ECF and its partners are working hard to put on events like this which help increase participation. We are very aware we need to break the perception that chess is male-dominated and show the game is changing—that chess is for everyone.”
English chess has unearthed a rich crop of talented youngsters in recent years with schoolgirl Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, leading the way. The nine-year-old made headlines as one of the world’s top prodigies last year and in September became the youngest player ever to represent England’s full chess team.
WFM Bodhana Sivanandan courtesy of Sam Bush, The New York Times
Organisers of the ECF National Schools Girls’ Team Championships are hoping to spot more talented youngsters.
Now in its 10th year, the ECF National Schools Girls’ Team Championships started life as an event to boost the fortunes of girls in the game organised by the English Chess Federation and St Catherine’s School in Bramley, Surrey.
ECF National Schools Girls’ Team Championships 2025A record entry to this month’s 2025 ECF National Schools Girls’ Team Championships in Surrey shows the perception of chess as a male-dominated activity is changing, one of Britain’s top players has said.
The partnership has recently been strengthened by the support of She Plays To Win, a non-profit organisation devoted entirely to the promotion of chess among girls and women.
This alliance has resulted in a series of national events which have increased in popularity year after year. Sunday, 26 January sees the semi-final of the 2025 championships take place in Bramley, Surrey. The final will be held at St Catherine’s on April 5 and 6.
“None of this could take place without the ongoing sponsorship of St Catherine’s School in Bramley and the vision of Headmistress Alice Phillips and Headmistress Naomi Bartholomew to help create and support the project over the last 10 years,” Martin said. “The event this year offers an unusual and stunning spectacle. Chess on a global scale. We can’t wait to see it happen.”
St. Catherine’s School, Bramley, Surrey
Alice Phillips, Headmistress of St Catherine’s, Bramley, added: “It is a delight once again to sponsor and host the ECF’s National Girls’ Team Chess Championships: a unique and collegiate event.
“From its inception in 2014, this tournament has exceeded all expectations each year and is the most dynamic national chess competition for young female players. We look forward to welcoming schools from all over the country and warmly invite new participant schools to help celebrate this exceptional assembly of like-minded girls.”
Unless you’re interested in British chess in the first four decades of the last century you might not have heard of Reginald Pryce Michell (1873-1938).
Carsten Hansen hadn’t heard of him either, until he came across a collection of his best games written by Julius du Mont and first published in 1947. Acknowledgement was given to LW Barden, who read the proofs: and, of course, he’s still writing about chess 78 years later.
Michell was one of England’s leading players for several decades, and, in the 1920s and 1930s, a regular participant in the British Championship and Hastings, along with other seaside holiday tournaments. Back in those days at Hastings and elsewhere, the top section would comprise a couple of world class players, a few minor European masters, some of England’s top exponents and perhaps one or two enthusiastic amateurs, so Michell was able to cross swords with many of the greats of his day.
He had draws to his credit against four world champions, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe and Botvinnik, as well as wins against the likes of Bogoljubov, Sultan Khan, Réti and most of the top British players from Blackburne via Atkins and Yates through to Alexander and Golombek, all of whom feature in these pages. I’d consider this a record that almost anyone could be proud of. EdoChess has him at over 2300 for more than 40 years and above 2400 in the early years of the last century.
Carsten Hansen thought it worthwhile to investigate further. Here we have a handsome hardback (there’s also a paperback edition which contains rather less material) comprising many of his best games, along with a biography and other material.
I may well write much more about Michell at some point in the future, as he was a member of Kingston Chess Club and lived in my part of the world, but for now I’ll tell you a bit more about the book.
We start with a brief biography written by du Mont, but including a tribute from one of his contemporaries, EG Sergeant: well worth reading to give you an idea of the man behind the moves. Then we have 36 original games from du Mont’s book. His, rather shallow and inaccurate in places, annotations have been retained, but Hansen has added his own annotations based on current opening theory and computer analysis. For me, the most interesting aspect of the book is the comparison between the two sets of notes, demonstrating just how much chess has changed over the past 80 years.
Following that, there are another 36 games, annotated by Hansen, the last five of which don’t appear in the (earlier) paperback edition, along with another new feature: 36 puzzles based on the games in the book.
The author helpfully provides indexes of openings, ECO codes and players at the back of the book.
Michell was a quiet and studious man who played, for the most part, quiet and studious chess. Although the games in this book are all of interest, you won’t see all that much in the way of brilliant sacrificial attacks.
Du Mont judged this game, a victory with the black pieces against a future world championship candidate, perhaps his finest performance. Click on any move for a pop-up window.
Back in 1947 there were comments about what Michell had done to deserve a games collection, when many much stronger players hadn’t been honoured in that way. You might think they had, and still have, a point: if so I’d advise you to go away and write some of the missing books yourself. Michell, like many quiet people, had hidden depths.
I know there are many chess book enthusiasts who enjoy games collections of this type. If you fall into this category, or if you have an interest in British chess from that period, you won’t want to miss this well produced book. There are quite a few typos, but that probably won’t concern you very much.
Carsten Hansen should be congratulated for bringing du Mont’s original book back into print, and for his invaluable updates and additions. If what you’ve read about Michell has piqued your interest, don’t hesitate – and go for the hardcover version with the additional material.
You can read more about Michell and see some of his other games in this excellent article by Neil Blackburn.
R. P. Michell – A Master of British Chess: A forgotten chess master, Carsten Hansen and Julius du Mont, Publisher : CarstenChess (16 Mar. 2024), ISBN-13 : 978-8793812888
“The Sicilian Scheveningen Defense is a highly respected and flexible variation of the Sicilian Defense, characterized by the pawn structure Black adopts with pawns on e6 and d6. It arises after the moves 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6. This setup allows Black to maintain a solid central presence while keeping options open for dynamic counterplay.”
About the Author:
“Grandmaster Daniel Gormally is currently living in Alnwick, Northumberland, England.
Danny has been a chess professional for over twenty years, in which time he has played in many tournaments both in the U.K. and abroad. He has represented England in the European team championships and the Olympiad. He has taken a high placing in the British chess championships and on several occasions has been placed in a tie for second. He is also the two times winner of the English rapid play championships.
In 2005 he scored his final Grandmaster norm in a tournament in Gibraltar, where he scored a 2693 performance. In that tournament he played against several world-class grandmasters, including Nakamura, Aronian, Sutovsky and Dreev, and only lost one game.
He is also the author of several well-received chess books, including “A Year in the Chess World” and “Mating the Castled King”, one of the few western chess books in recent years to be translated into Chinese.
As an author he is known for his laid-back and humorous style, this is his fourth book for Thinkers Publishing.”
GM Danny Gormally
This book is divided into eighteen chapters:
Chapter 1 – Tabiyas
Chapter 2 – The Chess Detective
Chapter 3 – A historical perspective
Chapter 4 – Kasparov vs Anand 1995
Chapter 5 – Engine analysis
Chapter 6 – Training games vs the engine
Chapter 7 – Chef’s recommendations
Chapter 8 – Turbo calculation
Chapter 9 – Defusing the most dangerous lines
Chapter 10 – Evaluations
Chapter 11 – Scheveningen Problems
Chapter 12 – Online adventures in the Scheveningen
Chapter 13 – 6.Bg5
Chapter 14 – Keres vs Nakamura
Chapter 15 – Delving deeper
Chapter 16 – Pawn breaks/structures
Chapter 17 – Tips for playing the Scheveningen
Chapter 18 – Exercises
The Scheveningen is not a trendy variation but there are a number of elite level players who have been proponents of this Sicilian variation such as Garry Kasparov and the current World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju.
The author, Danny Gormally explains in the Introduction section that “this isn’t your average chess book and I don’t sift through each and every variation and line in the typical way of most openings tomes, partly because I don’t find such opening books particularly enjoyable to read so have no desire to inflict them on the reader either”.
This book is therefore not a theoretical treatise on the trendy theory or otherwise of the Scheveningen Sicilian. There is some theory but there is not a dense thicket of complex, variations chapter after chapter. The author aims to explain the typical ideas, plans and pawn structures in this opening: in this he largely succeeds.
Danny also gives general advice on how to study an opening and on how to improve at chess. He obviously advocates the use of strong chess engines but stresses that over reliance on engine preparation without understanding, learning how to calculate and evaluate is harmful.
Chapter 1
This is a short chapter that introduces a couple of key positions in the Scheveningen: here is one from the Classical variation:
Scheveningen Classical Tabiya
The modern way to play this position is 9…e5 which equalises: the explanation given by the author is logical and illuminating. The older, more traditional move 9…Bd7 is a perfectly acceptable alternative which is covered in Chapter 7.
In the chapter summary, the author gives some sensible advice:
“play some training games from that position, perhaps against the computer or against a training partner. Study the position on Chessbase or some other kind of program…. That way you get a feel for the most familiar and most important positions in that opening variation. But it must be said, though, that there is no substitute for practical experience…. you analyse those games afterwards – the trail-and-error advantage of that is quite huge.”
Chapter 2
This section is a key chapter where the author gives general advice on studying positions:
Why has my opponent played that move?
What possible plans do I have in this position?
If I concretely play A, how is my opponent going to respond?
Seven exciting and didactic games from the Scheveningen are analysed with an emphasis on the opening/early middlegame plans for both sides. Five of these are in the Classical line, one in the English Attack, one in the dangerous f4/Be3/Qf3 or g4 line.
Classical Variation
Bezgodov – Andreikin Chelyabinsk 2018 after 14.Rae1
This position is discussed at length with the plans for both sides considered. The game continued 14…Rad8 15. Kh1 Bc6 16.Bd3 Qd7
Bezgodov – Andreikin after 16…Qd7 Chelyabinsk 2019
This is a typical position from the Classical variation. White played the tempting 17.Qh3?! eyeing 18.e5 but black has a typical counter 17…e5! (“you should always have the central breaks on your radar”) and Black is slightly better and went on to win a good positional game in the ending.
Here is another typical tabiya from the Classical variation.
Heberla – Moranda after 16…Re8 Polish Championships 2021
White played 17.Nd1!? which is the computer’s top suggestion. The plan and its resulting ideas and positions are discussed by the author which is instructive. 17…Bd8! was played and is a deft manoeuvre neutralising white’s attacking ideas.
Matlakov – Pichot after 17.Nd1 Bullet game Chess.com 2020
Here Black played the tempting 17…d5? (instead of the patient 17…Bd8) 18.Bxf6! Bxf6 19.e5 with a winning game: buy the book to see the denouement.
English Attack
Black has just responded 9…d5 after White’s queenside castling.
English Attack Vallejo Pons Francisco vs Anand Vishy
From the author: “A typical liberating central break, and it is my belief that this is the most reliable equaliser in this variation.”
Danny discusses the two major branches here:
A. 10.exd5 Nxd5! 11.Nxd5 Qxd5 12.c4 Qd6!=
B. 10.Qe1 e5! 11.Nxc6 bxc6 12.exd5
Here is another dangerous White system that can be defanged with a little detective work:
Ghinda – Espig Naleczow 1979
White can play two very aggressive moves which are dealt with in the same way:
8.Qf3 e5!
Ghinda-Espig Variation 8.Qf3 e5
9.Nf5!? (9.Nb3?! Bg4! 10. Qf2 d5! opening up the game as white has lost time with his queen) 9…Bxf5 (removing a piece that has moved 3 times) 10.exf5 Nbd7= Black has excellent development with Rc8 to follow.
8.g4 e5!
Ghinda-Espig 8.g4 e5
The central strike completely disrupts White’s attacking build-up. 9.Nf5 Bxf5 (removing the dangerous knight that has moved 3 times) 10.gxf5
Ghinda-Espig Variation Position after 10.gxf5
Superficially, this position looks good for white with the half open g-file, bishop pair and more space: he only needs to play Qf3, 0-0-0 and Rg1 with an excellent position. However, Black is well developed, is to move, and has two excellent plans.
A. 10…Nbd7 11.Qf3 Rc8 (already eyeing up an exchange sacrifice on c3)
B. 10…exf4 11.Bxf4 Qb6! (A lovely disruptive move eyeing the weak dark squares and exploiting White’s lack of development, a typical idea in many openings particularly in the Sicilian) 12.Qd2 Qxb2 13. Rb1 Qa3 unclear
Taking Danny’s general advice here, the reader should analyse this unclear position on their own and evaluate the resulting positions. Use the engine to check your work but don’t use the engine as a crutch all the time which can lead to laziness.
Chapter 3 – A historical perspective
The author puts the opening into its historical context citing Max Euwe as one of the major developers of the Scheveningen. Paul Keres’ 6.g4 is introduced with a crushing win by Keres over Efim Bogoljubov in 1943. Danny restores the Black players’ sanity with a excellent game by Garry Kasparov holding Anatoly Karpov in their first World Championship match in Moscow 1984.
Keres Attack after 8.Rg1
Kasparov played the interesting 8…h5!? and drew an exciting tussle.
Modern theory prefers the immediate central counterattack with 8…d5! which the author recommends.
Chapter 4 – Kasparov vs Anand 1995
This is an historical chapter with games from the Kasparov – Anand match in 1995. All three games covered are high quality encounters including a fine victory by Anand in game 9. The reviewer won’t say anymore as these games are fairly well known and the book covers them well.
Chapter 5 – Engine analysis
This short chapter discusses the pros and cons of using an engine in analysis. Clearly using an engine is a vital tool but “too much dependence on chess engines, as I know from my own experience, can make you lazy and you don’t activate your own thinking processes.”
“It is vital to do your own analysis….”
Four combative tussles are subjected to engine analysis which is illuminating to say the least.
Chapter 6 – Training games vs the engine
Four games are included with the author playing White: two in the Keres attack, 1 in the Sozin and 1 in the English attack.
The last game with the engine defending against the English attack is an excellent counterattacking game.
Chapter 7 – Chef’s recommendations
This is an important chapter where the author gives his recommended lines against White’s most dangerous tries:
Keres attack
English attack
Sozin attack
Classical variation
I won’t give any more spoilers here: buy the book to find out.
Chapter 8 – Turbo calculation
The author states: “In this chapter I want to test, and hopefully turbo-charge the readers’ calculation. Calculation is so important, and all the better younger players now work on this aspect of the game.”
Six exciting positions are given and the reader is invited to calculate the consequences of a particular move. Here is example 4:
Naiditsch – Graf Bundesliga 22-23 Position after 14.Bd2
The author asks: is 14…d5 15.exd5 Nb6 good for Black or not ?Calculate and check your answer in the book.
The chapter summary gives some useful concrete tips.
Chapter 9 – Defusing the most dangerous lines
In this chapter the author plays training games with Black against the engine, sees what the engine does to defeat him, then switches colours to see how it manages to defuse these “dangerous” attempts. The Classical and Sozin lines are covered. The importance of move order is also highlighted in certain lines.
Chapter 10 – Evaluations
“So, I would strongly recommend that you spend time checking your games and get into the habit of evaluating positions. If you don’t know how to evaluate positions then what is the point of calculating, as you won’t know what to aim for anyway?”
There are 6 tough positions to evaluate.
Here is the second position:
Nepomniachtchi – Duda World Blitz St Petersburg 2018
The solution is in the book.
Chapter 11 – Scheveningen Problems
“In this chapter I am going to pose you problems relating to the course. How sharp are you tactically? Let’s find out! And don’t be concerned if you get a lot of these wrong. I probably would as well. The main thing is not that you get them right, but that it gets you thinking about the opening.”
Here is the last of 11 positions:
Scheveningen Classical after 13.Bd3
Chapter 12 – Online adventures in the Scheveningen
Danny dissects four of his on-line games, three as Black and one as White in the Scheveningen.
The chapter summary is sensible advice.
Chapter 13 6.Bg5
This is an important chapter as 6.Bg5 can lead to transpositions to the Richter-Rauzer or the Najdorf or a hybrid Sicilian.
The reader should examine these games/move orders carefully.
Here is a good example:
Ivanov Rostislav – Gabrielian Artur St Petersburg 2014
8…e5! disrupts White’s attacking build-up
Chapter 14 Keres vs Nakamura
In this chapter, Gormally discusses Nakamura’s approach when facing the Keres Attack. The main theoretical recommendation is this book is 6…h6, but Nakamura plays 6…a6 and b5. This line is very dangerous for Black but just about playable. The chapter summary shines some light: “Computers have shown that most opening lines are defendable, and even though Black is under pressure in this early a6 line against the Keres attack, the counterattacking possibilities are obviously there.”
Chapter 15 – Delving deeper
In this section, the author discusses one of the key lines in the Keres attack. But before analysing two interesting games, Danny gives some general advice.
“Not that it is particularly productive to prepare for hours on end before a chess game, at all. I firmly believe that chess players spend too much time preparing for opponents, and not enough time preparing themselves….. it is clearly responsible to do SOME preparation.”
The line is question occurs after these moves:
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g4 h6 7.h4 Nc6 8.Rg1 d5!
There are two critical lines:
9. exd5
9.Bb5
Buy the book to learn more.
Chapter 16 – Pawn breaks/structures
Fourteen excellent examples are given.
Here is the sixth example:
Grischuk – Duda Chess.com 2018
8…?
Chapter 17 – Tips for playing the Scheveningen
This chapter gives some useful general advice on studying openings and preparation. Also included is general advice on improving at chess.
Chapter 18 – Exercises
The book finishes with an excellent set of 25 exercises: find the best move.
Here is exercise 8 (Black to play):
Gwaze – Ponomariov FIDE World Cup 2011 Position after 12.Kb1
Summary
This is an unusual book in its structure with a pot-pourri of chapters on different topics. It is not a traditional opening survey book which is the book’s strength and its weakness. The book is packed full of good advice on the main variations of the Scheveningen Sicilian concentrating on typical plans; pawn structures; manoeuvres as well as some concrete variations. The book also gives excellent advice on how to study openings generally and on how to improve at chess. The reviewer feels that a really ambitious player would need more details of concrete lines which the author acknowledges and Danny gives advice on how to build up a database of games that would cover all the major theoretical lines.
The reviewer recommends this excellent book.
FM Richard Webb, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 24th December 2024
The 1920s saw the beginnings of chess competitions for juniors. In 1921 a boys’ tournament took place in Hastings: this was repeated in 1922 and by 1923 had become the official British Boys’ Championship, for those under the age of 18. The first winner was Philip Stuart (later Sir Stuart) Milner-Barry.
That year the London Chess League decided to run their own championship for boys, starting on 31 December 1923, so you might just about claim that 2024 marks its centenary. It’s still going strong under the name of the London Junior Chess Championships.
The tournament took place, along with two sections for adult players, at St Bride’s Institute, which would remain its venue for many years. Sir Richard Barnett, whom you met last time playing chess on a liner in 1930 before sailing off into the sunset, was on hand to open the congress, advising the contestants to put ‘safety first’.
In these days of pre-teen grandmasters and an 18-year-old world champion, it’s salutary to consider how, just a century ago, the whole idea of teenagers playing chess was considered strange. The press commented on how well they played, and on how they used up most of their time on the clock.
The tournament attracted ten players, and press interest was such that we have all their initials and surnames, and, in some cases, their schools. Of course it doesn’t help that one of the competitors was J Smith, but we can at least have a stab at identifying all of them. While most of them grew up to have fairly anonymous lives (mostly) away from the chessboard, two of them had more interesting stories to tell, one inspirational, the other disturbing.
The first story I’d like to tell is that of Max Black. Born in 1909 and a pupil at Dame Alice Owen’s School in North London, he was one of the younger competitors. In spite of his relative youth he scored 6/9, finishing in third place.
Max’s father Lionel was a wealthy Jewish silk merchant, born in Kyiv, but, by 1909 living in Baku where Max (like Garry Kasparov many years later) was born. In 1912, deciding that Russia wasn’t a safe place for a Jewish family, Anglophile Lionel, his wife and two young sons (Max had now been joined by Misha) moved to England, translating their name from the Russian Tcherny to Black. Two more children would be born there: Samuel (Sam) and Rivka (Betty).
Here, in a family photo from an online tree, you can see the family at some point in the mid 1920s.
Max played in the London Boys’ Championship for the next three years (I’ll tell you how he fared another time) before graduating to adult chess in 1928. By this time he was reading mathematics at Queens’ College Cambridge, and was also moving in the same circles as the leading philosophers of the day, such as Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
He was selected to play on board 5 in that year’s Varsity match, where he faced future Communist spy Solomon Adler.
He was losing for much of the game, but, after Adler made an instructive error just before adjudication, he was fortunate to be able to share the point. (As always, click on any move in the game for a pop-up window.)
Max entered the 1928-29 Hastings Congress where he was placed in the Major B section, won by his contemporary C H O’D Alexander.
He lost this game against another talented teenager, where he made a couple of understandable defensive errors against Mortlock’s kingside attack.
In the matches preceding the 1929 Varsity Match Max won two games against Maurice Goldstein, one of the strongest London amateurs of his day.
Here’s one of them.
It’s interesting to observe in these games that players were experimenting with openings (the Pirc Defence and the Benko Gambit) which would only become established several decades later.
In the Varsity Match itself he again faced Solomon Adler, this time getting crushed with the black pieces after playing the opening much too passively.
Max’s next appearance was in the 1930 Varsity Match, by which time he’d reached the heights of Board 2, facing (Arthur) Eric Smith.
Again, he was lucky to escape with a draw after the future Canon missed a couple of wins.
But that was to be the end of his competitive chess career, as, on completing his studies he chose to devote himself to his academic and family life.
After graduating in 1930 Max spent a year studying in Göttingen, before taking a post teaching mathematics at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, at the same time writing his first book, The Nature of Mathematics: a Critical Survey. In 1936 he returned to London, lecturing in maths at the Institute of Education (part of University College London). In 1940, switching from maths to philosophy, he accepted a post at the University of Illinois, before becoming a philosophy professor at Cornell University in 1946. He remained at Cornell until his retirement in 1977, but continued lecturing worldwide until his death in 1988.
Describing himself as a “lapsed mathematician, addicted reasoner, and devotee of metaphor and chess”, he maintained an interest in chess throughout his life. He is particularly noted for the ‘mutilated chessboard’ problem, devised as means of demonstrating critical thinking. Take a chessboard with two opposite corners removed. Is it possible to fill the whole board with 2×1 dominoes? If you stop and think for a moment, the solution is obvious, but not everyone is able to think like that.
His celebrity chess opponents included Arthur Koestler, whom he beat in four moves, and Vladimir Nabokov, whom he beat twice, neither game lasting more than 15 minutes. It’s said that he gave displays of blindfold chess and, even in his late sixties, gave simultaneous displays against up to 20 opponents.
Source: Wikipedia
I would suggest to you that, as an analytical philosopher, searching for meaning in language, mathematics, science and art, promoting logic and critical thinking, Max Black was one of the most important figures of the 20th century you probably haven’t heard of. It’s gratifying to know that, in his teens, he took part with distinction in the first four runnings of the London Boys’ Chess Championship.
If you’re interested you can read more about him on Wikipedia and MacTutor. You’ll find lots more online as well: Google Books and Amazon Books are both helpful.
His brothers both achieved eminence as well, in very different fields. Sir Misha Black, who wasn’t a competitive chess player, was an architect and designer noted for the street signs in Westminster and for designing trains for British Rail and the London Underground. Sam Black, the youngest of the three brothers, was also an alumnus of the London Boys’ Chess Championship, and had a very distinguished international career in the field of public relations while at the same time practising as an optician. A lifelong chess player, he was Secretary of Finchley Chess Club and President of the North Circular Chess League, who still run an annual blitz tournament in his honour.
While Misha Black was campaigning for peace in the 1930s, one of Max’s opponents was following a very different path.
Clement Frederic Brüning , as the youngest player in the competition, attracted some media attention.
Daily News (London) 02 January 1924
He finished in last place, with a score of 2/9, but, undaunted, he also took part in the British Boys’ Championship a few months later, drawing with the eventual winner Wilfred Pratten in his preliminary group and finishing runner-up to Alfred Mortlock in his section of the finals.
Like Max Black, Clement came from an immigrant background. While Max was the oldest child of Russian Jewish parents who were first generation immigrants, Clement was the youngest of five sons of a German Catholic father and an English mother.
Carl Alexander Marcell Brüning (usually known as Marcell) seems to have come to England from Cloppenburg in Lower Saxony in about 1890 along with his brother Bernhard, assisting their older brother Conrad’s coal merchant’s business. The 1891 census found the family in Hampstead, and in 1901 Bernhard and Marcell were boarding in Kingston. In 1903 Marcell married Clara Mary Bagshawe, from a prominent Catholic family, whose Uncle Edward had recently retired as Bishop of Nottingham.
At this point Clara and Marcell were living a peripatetic life, living in Rochford, Essex, Newcastle, back to Rochford and then to New York, presumably for his coal dealing business. During these peregrinations, five sons were quickly born: Guy, Maurice, Roland, Peter and finally Clement in 1911.
Here, in a family photograph, is a smiling young Clement on his rocking horse.
In 1921 most of the family were still abroad, but Clara was visiting her father in Chiswick (I used to have a pupil in the next road) while Guy, taking a break from his studies, was on holiday in Westcliff on Sea, near Southend and not far from his place of birth.
They must then have returned to settle in Ealing, the Queen of Suburbs, living in a large detached house just west of the Broadway. Clement was enrolled as a pupil at Ealing Priory (now St Benedict’s) School, which was where we found him in 1924.
Clement competed in both the London and British Boys’ Championships in 1925. In the latter event he shared third place in the top section, again drawing with Pratten in a game he should have won.
John Saunders comments in BritBase:
Sources: Staffordshire Advertiser, 16 May 1925; BCM, May 1925, p216. The score of the game in BCM (from which the newspaper score may have been taken) gives the players as Bruning (White) and Pratten (Black) but the detailed description of the game on p214 makes it fairly certain that Pratten played White in the game: “In the last round Pratten very nearly had a shock. Opening with a Ponziani, which turned into a kind of Ruy Lopez after Bruning had played 3.., P-Q 3, he got a strong-looking game; but Bruning defended so well that the situation changed entirely to the holder’s disadvantage, and at last a sacrifice was obviously Black’s policy. Bruning saw this, but unfortunately sacrificed the wrong piece, and Pratten, by giving up his Queen, for adequate compensation, was able to extricate himself, and a draw resulted.” But we cannot be certain.
The computer informs me that White had an easy win in the final position, but no one seems to have realised this at the time. Insipid, as the Staffordshire Advertiser annotator calls it, it certainly wasn’t.
In 1926 he took part in the same two tournaments, but with less success, this time he performed poorly in his preliminary section of the British, but did manage to win his consolation event.
Perhaps this result was the reason why Clement decided to give up chess at this point.
In 1934, though, by which time the family, perhaps now less well off, had moved a mile to the west, to a semi-detached house in the less prestigious suburb of Hanwell, he was in the papers again, for a very different reason.
Middlesex County Times 19 May 1934
Over the next few years young Clement, clearly a young man with a gift for oratory, played an increasingly important role in Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, speaking at events around the South of England and writing letters to newspapers. His older brothers were apparently also Blackshirts, but didn’t play a prominent role.
(Another BUF member was aviation pioneer Alliott Verdon Roe, whose mother, Annie Sophia (Verdon) Roe, had been a regular competitor in the early years of the British Ladies’ Chess Championship.)
Eastbourne Chronicle 21 November 1936
Clement is probably one of the young men in this photograph from a meeting in Eastbourne protesting against the Public Order Bill banning political uniforms: a reaction to the Battle of Cable Street.
A brief quote from the same source:
By 1937, and now the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Wood Green constituency, he had risen to the post of Propaganda Administrator for the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists, and was working closely with both Mosley and William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw).
He was often invited to speak at Rotary Clubs, for instance here in Cheshire.
Alderley & Wilmslow Advertiser 01 October 1937
He then moved to Bethnal Green, working for what was by then the British Union, and, when war was declared in 1939, was in Germany, apparently working for Welt-Dienst (World Service), an anti-Semitic broadcasting network.
Then something unexpected happened. He ended up in a concentration camp, where he was murdered by the Nazis on 17 August 1942. What had happened? We know he was being investigated by MI5. Perhaps he’d changed his opinion and fallen foul of the Nazis, or maybe he’d been recruited as a double agent. Nobody knows, or if they do they’re not telling. A very sad and mysterious end for the cute, chubby-cheeked smiling lad on the rocking horse, for the young perpetrator of dashing but unsound attacks in his three years of participation in boys’ chess tournaments.
Two contrasting stories, then, the brilliant mathematician and philosopher whose name was Black, and his rival whose shirt was black, and whose premature endgame resulted in tragedy.
But what of the other eight pioneers of London Boys’ Chess? Their lives, as far as I can tell, took rather more conventional courses.
The tournament winner, with a 100% score, was J Allcock of Coopers’ School, now in Upminster, but then in Bow Road, East London. I believe this was Jack Adams Allcock (1906-1969), who lived very close to the school. He was clearly a promising player, but seems to have played little chess on leaving school. We can pick him up playing for London University in 1928, and in the London League for North London in 1933. His father ran an off licence in Bow, later becoming the landlord of the Duke of York in Hackney, and it seems that Jack and his wife Eliza helped him running the pub. In spite of Jack’s education the family were never well off, both Jack and Eliza leaving very little money. I can’t find any immediate connection with the strong City of London player James Frederick Allcock.
In second place, on 6½/9, was Stanley Thomas Henry Goodwin, born in 1906, and, like Max Black, a pupil at Dame Alice Owen’s School. Also from Hackney, Stanley’s father Vincent was a Post Office sorter. He married in 1932, and the 1939 Register found him living in North London and working as a brewery clerk He served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in World War 2, and, it seems later emigrated to Australia where he died in Perth, but I don’t have a death date. I have no further record of any chess activity after this tournament.
Percy Geoffrey Husbands (1906-1987) of Regent Street Polytechnic scored 5/9 for fourth place. Percy lived in Ealing: his father Basil was working as a furniture dealer in 1911, but by 1921 he was a house furnisher and decorator, no longer employing servants. In 1934 Husbands became a husband, marrying Lucy Sophia Eavis, whose family owned (and still own) Worthy Farm near Glastonbury. Michael Eavis, the founder of the Glastonbury Festival, is the son of Lucy’s half-brother Joseph Eavis. By 1939 Percy was living in Uckfield, Sussex, working as an Insurance Clerk. His chess career continued in the 1924 British Boys’ Championship and the minor section of the London tournament in 1924-25, but after this event he seemed to stop playing: perhaps work, as it often does, got in the way.
Being confronted by J Smith is a genealogist’s nightmare, and that’s who we have on 4/9. We do know, though, that he was John B Smith of Sir Walter St John School in Battersea, and that he also played in the following year’s tournament. The most likely candidate is John Bryan Smith, born in 1908, the son of a plumber from Wandsworth. He spent much of the 1930s travelling 1st class to and from West Africa, described first as an Assistant and then as a Merchant’s Agent before disappearing from view.
On 3½/9 we find Hugh George Excell (1907-1993) from North London Chess Club. Hugh was the son of an Insurance Claims Inspector from Hackney. He signed up for the Royal Artillery in June 1939, but in September that year was living with his fiancée in Suffolk. Hugh continued playing competitive chess occasionally until at least 1932, including this tournament the following year, and, most notably, one of the first class sections in the 1929 Ramsgate Easter Congress. In the later 1930s he took up correspondence chess, but his chess career seems to have ended with the outbreak of the Second World War.
Here he is, playing in the London Secondary Schools competition (a separate event) in 1925.
London Daily Chronicle 28 March 1925
His opponent in this game was Philip Ernest Bowers (1908-1999), who scored 3/9 in the inaugural London Boys’ Championship. Philip was the son of a Police Constable, originally from Norfolk, but who was living in Chelsea by 1921. He was a pupil at Westminster City School, and would also compete in this tournament for two more years. He returned to chess in 1935, by which time he had moved to Birmingham, and rose rapidly through the ranks to become one of his club’s leading players. By 1940 chess activity there was curtailed by the war, and it seems that, like many others, Philip stopped playing at this point. Like many chess players, he spent his adult life teaching maths.
Known as ‘Bill’ rather than Philip, here he is pictured later in life from an online family tree.
Half a point below him, and half a point above Clement Brüning in 9th place was Jack Liebster (1907-1996), the son of a Russian born GP from Stoke Newington. Both his parents were Jewish, but his mother was born in Stepney: Jack was the youngest of their five children. Chess must have been played in the family: his father is recorded as submitting correct solutions to problems in the London Daily Chronicle in 1901, but this was to be, as far as I can tell, his only experience of competitive chess. In the 1939 Register Jack was described as a Traveller, and also as an ambulance driver. He married a chemist’s daughter in 1941, and they moved to Dunstable, where they had two children and played a significant role in the local Jewish community.
That leaves one other player, variously recorded as JS Lauder or JS Lander, whose score of 3½ left him level with Hugh Excell. I can’t find anyone with that name in the right place at the right time, but I did find Joseph John Lauder (1906-1999), the son of a Scottish born Police Inspector based at Wimbledon Police Station. He was certainly a chess player, and, more importantly, a much respected chess administrator for many years. Joseph (Harry to his friends, Mr Lauder to me) was secretary of both the Surrey County Chess Association and the Southern Counties Chess Union for many years and later, in the 1970s, the SCCU Bulletin Editor. I used to visit his home in Wimbledon every year to collect our club copies of the SCCU Grading List. Quite rightly, the chess players of Surrey now compete for a trophy named in his honour. There’s no way of knowing for certain, but I do hope it was him.
There are no more pre-war chess references, but we can pick Mr Lauder up in the 1939 Register, where he was employed as a Bank Clerk and living in the next road to where he was in the 70s. The first post-war chess record I can find for him is in 1947, playing for his local club. For some years he played regular club and county chess, also enjoying competing at Bognor Regis every year up to 1962. He was a decent, above average club strength player, but it was as an administrator that he deserves to be – and still is – remembered.
There’s much more to be written about the teenage boys who played tournament chess in the 1920s. At some point I’ll introduce you to some of the other LBCC players, and perhaps some of the other competitors in the British Boys’ Championship during that period.
Sources and Acknowledgements
ancestry.co.uk (Black, Brüning and Bowers family trees)
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Archives
Wikipedia
Google Books (search for Max Black and Clement Brüning)
MacTutor
British Chess News
chessgames.com
ChessBase 18/Stockfish 17
Surrey County Chess Association and Southern Counties Chess Union archives/websites
Various other sources mentioned above
“Chess players can look ahead, formulate a clear plan, and act accordingly. That’s why chess is the perfect learning environment for becoming a strategic expert. But how do you train this? It starts with playing many games and analysing them carefully afterwards.
At the same time, you should learn from the best by studying the games of the world’s strongest players and gradually build their techniques into your play. This book offers you 100 strategic exercises from the games of the best of the best, the World Champions from Bobby Fischer to Ding Liren.
You will learn foundational techniques such as: how to improve your worst-placed piece; how to exploit a lead in development; or make the right piece trade; and how to create a strong square; plus numerous others.
Solving these exercises will help every ambitious club player better understand how to make and execute plans.”
About the Author:
“Thomas Willemze is an International Master from the Netherlands. He is an experienced trainer of amateur players of all levels and has been the National Youth Coach of the Dutch Chess Federation. New In Chess has published his books The Chess Toolbox and The Scandinavian for Club Players and 1001 Chess Endgame Exercises for Beginners – all well-liked by reviewers and customers alike.”
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Willemze
In the introduction to the last book I reviewed, Wojciech Moranda proclaimed: “It is my utmost belief that any author who is seriously interested in helping others excel at chess should treat enriching the public domain with genuinely new training material as a priority.” He adds that “… there is a special rung in hell for authors who shamelessly keep on repeating the same, well-known examples in their books over and over again”.
While I understand where he’s coming from, I don’t entirely agree, and neither, I suspect, does Thomas Willemze. If you’re a subscriber to New in Chess Magazine you’ll know the name from his “What Would You Play?” feature, in which he asks the reader questions taken from amateur games.
Here, though, he introduces his readers to the world champions from Fischer through to Ding Liren, talking about their distinctive styles of play and offering questions concerning strategy taken from their games.
There are similarities and differences with Moranda’s book. While Moranda alternated strategic and tactical questions, Willemze only offers you questions of strategy. While Moranda’s questions give you the chance to play better than the (often very strong) player who failed to find the optimal plan, Willemze’s questions ask you to find the same plan as that chosen by his world champion subjects. Moranda’s solutions are (partially) computer-generated lines showing you what might have happened, Willemze’s solutions show you what happened in the game when the champion opted for the correct plan.
Willemze prefaces each chapter (or ‘part’) with a few pages describing the player’s style and giving a few examples of his play. He’s writing, then, for players who may be less knowledgeable about chess history and won’t have seen most of the positions before. Moranda’s assuming his readers will be well aware of the world champions’ styles and will be familiar with many of their games.
Moranda is writing mainly for very strong and ambitious players with plenty of time available for study.
Willemze is pitching his book at a slightly lower level, ‘club players’ according to the title.
Solving these exercises, he claims, will help every ambitious club player to better construct their own plans in a chess game.
He lists some of the lessons you’ll learn:
improve your worst placed piece;
exploit a lead in development;
make the right piece trade;
create a strong square;
discover your opponent’s weakest spot;
use an open file;
launch a powerful pawn break;
open up the position when needed;
Each of the 100 questions is presented in a jumbo sized diagram. Overleaf you’ll discover whether or not you found the solution, followed by a boxed ‘conclusion’ explaining the lesson to be learnt. At the end of each part you’ll find a page of flash cards which you may find useful if you like learning that way.
Let’s turn to a few random examples.
This is Karpov – Malaniuk (USSR Championship 1988). Can you find a way to activate the white bishops?
If you sacrificed the exchange on e7 you found the correct solution.
Here’s the game: click on any move for a pop-up window.
From Miles – Anand (Manila Interzonal 1990): Anand has developed a very powerful initiative on the queenside. What should be his next step?
If you chose Qc8 here, preparing to open up a second front on the other side of the board, you’ve played as well as Anand.
The complete game again:
My final position comes from a Carlsen game you might not be familiar with.
Dourerassou – Carlsen (World U14 Championship Chalkidiki 2003): how, Willemze wants to know, did Carlsen gain the upper hand?
The young Carlsen chose Rd4, to unleash his bishop, appreciating that, once the position opens up it will be superior to the white knight.
You’ll see here what happened next.
Although some of the positions will be familiar to some readers, there are many examples, such as this, from games which will be less well known. Even if you’re very well read, there will be some unfamiliar material here for you.
Willemze has done an excellent job in finding suitable positions for the book, and in offering clear and concise explanations without using reams of computer analysis. This book, I would suggest, is suitable for average or stronger club players, perhaps 1600-2200 strength, with 1800-2000 the main target market. But see what you think from the examples here and in the sample pages.
Production levels are well up to this publisher’s usual high standards, so, if you like what you’ve seen so far, you won’t be disappointed. An enjoyable read which will tell you something about the classical world champions from Fischer through to Ding, and provide you with an array of tools to improve your strategic skills.
You can find out more about the book here and read some sample pages here.
Richard James, Twickenham 21st December 2024
Richard James
Book Details:
Softcover: 264 pages
Publisher: New in Chess; 1st edition (6 Sept. 2023)
I’ve long been intrigued by this match played on board a liner in 1930.
Linlithgowshire Gazette 06 June 1930
There’s much to be written about the Imperial Club, which played an important part in many aspects of London chess between its foundation in 1911 and the outbreak of the Second World War. It provided a venue for social chess for both Londoners and those from other parts of the British Empire who happened to be passing through, but it was also far more than that. The club was founded by the extraordinary Mrs Arthur Rawson (Ella Frances Bremner): I’ll tell her story, and more of the club’s story in future Minor Pieces.
The list of their players in this match provides a snapshot of their membership, and, more generally, tells us something of the social status of chess in the inter-war years.
Board 1: Sultan Khan (1903-66: Mir, along with Malik, is an erroneous honorific which shouldn’t be considered part of his name) needs no introduction. In this match he could only draw with the little-known W Veitch, although it’s quite likely the result was diplomatic.
Only seven months later he won a Famous Game against none other than Capablanca. For this and all games in this article, click on any move for a pop-up window.
Here he is, on the left, playing against his patron (board 18 in this match).
Board 2: Major Sir Richard Whieldon Barnett (1863-1930) – Irish barrister, sportsman (shooting), volunteer officer and freemason, Irish chess champion 1886-89, Conservative and Unionist MP 1916-29. Most of his constituency now comes under Holborn and St Pancras, represented today by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. He died just a few months later, on 30 October 1930, following an operation. You can read an extensive obituary published by the BCMhere (scroll down to ‘Barnett’).
Here’s his game from this match, which also looks like a diplomatic draw as he was a pawn up with a probably winning advantage in the final position.
Board 3: Charles Wreford-Brown (1866-1951) – amateur footballer (one of the best of his day, captaining his national team) and cricketer. He didn’t play a lot of competitive chess, but what he did was at a high standard, taking part in the unofficial chess olympiad of 1924 (he lost to Marcel Duchamp in an unlikely encounter between two very different celebrities) and playing in the 1933 British Championship, where he unfortunately had to withdraw for health reasons having won and drawn his first two games. A few years ago I met one of his cousins in a school chess club and was able to show him this game.
Here he is, wearing his England football shirt.
Board 4: Vickerman Henzell Rutherford (1860-1934), politician and doctor. The Imperial Chess Club attracted many politicians, mostly from the Conservative Party, but the splendidly named VH Rutherford was an exception, representing the Liberal Party as an MP before switching allegiance to the Labour Party. The current incarnation of his Brentford constituency, now Brentford and Isleworth, is currently represented by Ruth Cadbury, very distantly related to the Secretary of Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club.
In 1925 Barnett and Rutherford played in the two parallel sections of the First Class tournament at the British Championships in Stratford, both scoring 6/11, suggesting that they were both strong club standard players. EdoChess gives Rutherford’s rating at the time as about 2000. Judge for yourself from this game.
Board 5: Colonel E Marinas: not certain about his identity but there was a Spanish (?) naval officer named Eugenio Marinas around at the time so it might possibly have been him.
Board 6: Edward Harry Church (1867-1947), a pharmaceutical chemist from Cambridge, was a leading light in local chess circles, being President of his club for many years and would later (1938-39) be elected President of the Southern Counties Chess Union. He must have had occasion to spend time in London as well.
Board 7: JG Bennett. I’m uncertain as to the identity of this player. There were two JG Bennetts loosely involved in chess: James George Bennett (1866-1952) was a journalist from Grantham in Lincolnshire: quite a long way from London, but he could have been there on business. There was also a JG Bennett involved in administration and occasionally playing in Kent, perhaps in the Canterbury area, but I haven’t been able to identify him further.
Board 8: Miss Kate (Catherine) Belinda Finn (1864-1932) had been active in Ladies’ chess circles, being a founder member of the Ladies’ Chess Club in 1895, as well as winning the British Ladies’ Championship in 1904 and 1905. For further information see John Saunders here.
She’s on the right here, playing in the 1905 British Ladies Championship.
Board 9: this must be John Goodrich Wemyss Woods (1852-1944), a retired schoolmaster (second master and mathematics teacher at Gresham’s School, Norfolk) and amateur artist. The only other chess reference I can find for him is helping to provide some annotations to a game played by a fellow Imperial member some years earlier.
Here’s one of his paintings.
Woods, John Goodrich Wemyss; Star Bridge, Newbury, Berkshire; West Berkshire Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/star-bridge-newbury-berkshire-27437
Board 10: Hon. Arthur James Beresford Lowther (1888-1967) was a barrister who served in the First World War (see here), After the war he became Assistant Commissioner for Kenya (1918-20) and later Aide-de-Camp to the Governor of Southern Rhodesia in 1923. On his return to England he took up competitive chess, finishing runner-up in the 2nd Class tournament in the 1927 British Championships.
Board 11: Miss Alice Elizabeth Hooke (1862-1942), who has featured in earlier Minor Pieces here and here. She was a chess player and organiser, sharing first place in the 1930 and 1932 British Ladies Championships.
The Imperial Review 15 July 1909 (from the Hooke family website)
Board 12: Mrs Amy Eleanor Wheelwright, née Benskin (1890-1980), another of the strongest lady players of the period, sharing first place in the 1931 British Ladies Championship, and taking the runner-up spot in 1933. Here she lost to the tournament winner, a member of Sir Umar Hayat Khan’s entourage.
Liverpool Daily Post 14 October 1931
Board 13: Rufus Henry Streatfeild Stevenson (1878-1943), later the husband of Vera Menchik and Hon. Secretary of the BCF, was one of the most important figures in British chess in the inter-war years as an administrator and also a promoter of women’s chess. He was also a regular competitive player, winning the Kent championship in 1919: a result which probably flattered him as I suspect the stronger players in the county didn’t take part.
https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/arch30.htm
Board 14: James Frederick Chance (1856-1938) came from a prominent family of glass manufacturers in the Black Country but later devoted his life to the study of history. In 1911 he was in Offchurch, near Leamington Spa, visiting his sister Eleanor and her husband, a retired clergyman named William Bedford. They were living next door to the vicarage where James Agar-Ellis employed my great aunt Ada Padbury as a cook. He was a long-standing member of the Imperial Chess Club, serving as president from 1934 until his death. His obituary in the BCM described him as being a chess player of medium strength.
Here he is, in 1935, playing the young Elaine Saunders.
Daily Herald 25 November 1935
Board 15: Julian Veitch Jameson (1880-1932) came from a family with Irish and Scottish connections as well as links to both India and Kenya. In 1891 he was living in Bowden Hall, Great Bowden, near Market Harborough, where he might, I suppose, have met some of my father’s relations. He later worked as an indigo planter in India. His middle name came from his grandmother Mary Jane Veitch, so he may have been distantly related to Sultan Khan’s opponent. He was active in chess circles for the last few years of his life, scoring 50% in the 2nd Class B section at the 1929 British Championship in Ramsgate, when he was living in Chalfont St Giles, but later moving to Folkestone, where he drew with Yates in a 1931 simul. His son Thomas played cricket for Hampshire.
This photograph from an online family tree shows Julian with a friend.
Board 16: Miss Mary Ann Eliza Andrews (1863-1954) was born on the island of Jersey, but her family later moved to Brighton. Her brother, William Richard Andrews, was a prominent Sussex player. She later worked as a schoolmistress. In 1921 she was living in New Cross, South London, in the same road as Jack Redon and his family, but teaching at Halley Road School in Limehouse, north of the Thames. She only seems to have taken up competitive chess on her retirement, playing in the British Ladies Championship in 1923, 1926, and in 8 consecutive years from 1928 to 1935. Her best scores were 8/11 in 1934, and 7/11 in 1930, 1931 and 1932. In 1928 she shared first place in the 2nd Class B section of the West of England Championships (well ahead of Arthur Lowther), but lost this game to the other joint winner, who was killed by a Japanese sniper in Burma in 1944.
British Chess Magazine May 1923
Miss Andrews is the lady wearing what looks like a fur stole centre left, with Lilly Eveling next to her. Lilly’s sister Clara is further along the same row towards the right. If you visit BritBase here you can hover over the faces to identify the names.
Board 17: FH George. I have no information about this player. Seemingly not connected to TH George of Ilford, who would have been on a much higher board. There was a player of that age who lost all his games in a junior tournament in Ramsgate in 1929. There was a Frank Harold George from London (1870-1940) who was, intriguingly, a Comedian in 1911, and working for Harrods as a Clerk in the Counting House in 1921. This might, I suppose, have been him.
Board 18: Major General Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan Tiwana (1874-1944) was a soldier of the Indian Empire, one of the largest landholders in the Punjab, and an elected member of the Council of State of India, who had brought Sultan Khan to London and promoted his chess career. He must also have been a reasonably strong player himself.
Board 19: Mrs Latham is something of a mystery. She played in the 1907 Ostend Ladies tournament, then joined the Ladies club in London, moving on, like many of her clubmates, to the Imperial Chess Club, where she played at least up to this match. She can be seen in a photograph of a reception held for Alekhine in 1932, but she was never awarded even an initial, let alone a first name. Can anyone out there help identify her?
British Chess Magazine Feburary 1932
Mrs Latham is the lady seated on the left, with Mrs Arthur Rawson next to her. You’ll then spot Vera Menchik and Alekhine, with Sultan Khan on the floor on the right. Other participants on the liner included RHS Stevenson (2nd left top row), C Wreford-Brown (4th left top row), next to him Sir Ernest Graham-Little, and then Sir Umar Hayat Khan. Edward Winter provides the full list of names here (you’ll have to scroll down a bit). Note that A Rutherford is not related to VH Rutherford.
Board 20: Mrs M Healey is another mystery. She played in some tournaments in the late 1920s when she was living in South Croydon, and again in the late 1930s by which time she had moved to Hastings. She won a prize at Hastings in 1938 for the best score by a lady in the Second Class section. It’s not clear whether M was her or her husband’s initial.
Board 21: Arthur Newton Streatfeild (1859-1956) was secretary of the Carlton Club for many years. He doesn’t appear to have been a competitive chess player. A member of a distinguished family (note the spelling) who would therefore have had a family connection with his teammate on Board 13.
Board 22: most likely to be Harry Norman Hunter (1883-1966?), a music salesman/publisher originally from Sunderland. In 1921 he was working for Francis, Day & Hunter: the Hunter comes from the music hall composer and performer Harry Hunter, whose real name was William Henry Jennings, and seems to have had no connection with Harry Norman Hunter. I can’t find any other record of him playing chess.
Board 23: Miss Lilly Eveling (1867-1951) came from a prosperous family of drapers in Kent. She played competitively from 1913 up to the second world war, but with little success, scoring only 1/11 in both her appearances in the British Ladies Championship, in 1930 and 1931. Her sister Clara was also a chess player.
Board 24: Henry Bell (1858-1935) was a banker and financier, rising to become general manager of Lloyds Bank, and also a Director until his retirement in 1924. In that year he unsuccessfully stood for parliament representing the Liberal Party in a by-election for the City of London constituency. He was also the President of the Imperial Chess Club for several years.
Board 25: Sir Thomas William Richardson (1865-1947) was a former civil servant and High Court judge in India, who, on returning to England, was very much involved with promoting the development of municipal housing in Fulham.
From the National Portrait Gallery. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp137152/sir-thomas-william-richardson
Board 26: Mrs Fitzgerald. The full name and dates of this player are currently unknown to me.
Board 27: likely to be Miss Marion Isabella McCombie (1866-1936), the daughter of a quill merchant. I have no further information about her chess.
Board 28: Mrs Yuill The full name and dates of this player are again currently unknown to me.
Board 29: Mrs Ella (Ellen on her birth record) Frances Rawson (née Bremner) (1856-1942) was the founder of the Imperial Chess Club and a promoter of chess for women and girls. Born in Glasgow, she emigrated to New Zealand where she married Arthur Rawson. Her husband died in 1894, and in about 1909 she moved to London, where she founded the Imperial Chess Club. I’ll write more about this in a future Minor Piece. Although purely a social player herself she was a very important figure in London chess in the inter-war years.
Board 30: Florence Mary (Miles-)Bailey (née Hobson) (1866-1952), daughter of a master builder and widow of a stockbroker, who achieved some fame by playing chess on long-distance aeroplane flights (see here). Although some of her games took place at a high level, her standard of play was probably at a relatively low level.
Daily Mirror 24 February 1927
Board 31: Sir Ernest Gordon Graham Graham-Little (1867-1950) was a dermatologist and Independent MP for London University from 1924 to 1950. If he’d stood for election there in 1922 or 1923 he’d have faced the novelist and chess enthusiast HG Wells, who unsuccessfully represented the Labour Party. Although not a strong player himself, Sir Ernest was a great patron of chess who rarely missed an opportunity to support his favourite game.
Board 32: Hon Mildred Dorothea Gibbs (1876-1961), known as Minnie in her family, was a daughter of the 2nd Baron Aldenham, a Conservative politician from a famous banking family.
From a family website: Quartermaster of London Voluntary Aid Detachment No. 30 of the British Red Cross Society, 1910; commandant of No. 116, 1913. Served with Bulgaria Red Cross Society in Kirk Kilisse 1912-13 (decorated by the Queen of Bulgaria). In the Great War, amongst other V.A.D. services in London, was in 1915 successively a Nurse at Westminster V.A.D. Hospital, in charge of a Belgian Refugee Convalescent Hostel, and on Air Raid duty; and, from October 1915 to November 1918, Head of the Posting Department of County of London Branch of the Bulgaria Red Cross Society. Attached to the Westminster Division of the B.R.C.S. October 1919, sometime temporary secretary and vice-chairman, chairman 1926-8. Resigned V.A.D. 1929. ‘Member’ 1918, ‘Officer’ 1919, of the Order of the British Empire. Member of the Church of England National Assembly from 1925.
She’s the girl on the right in this charming family photograph.
You’ll immediately notice a few things about the Imperial team. Most obviously, there are 13 ladies amongst the 32 players, although mostly on the lower boards. They’re all from upper middle class or even minor aristocratic backgrounds. They’re mostly older, with many born back in the 1850s and 1860s. Apart from Sultan Khan, the youngest was Amy Wheelwright, born in 1890.
And here they all are: the players from both teams: you can see a larger version, thanks to Edward Winter, here.
British Chess Magazine June 1930
I can add a little about the top three players in Lord Kylsant’s team.
Board 1: William Veitch (1877-1957) was born in Kincardineshire in the East of Scotland, which is where his surname originates. His family moved down to Hampshire, where he played for Southampton and Hampshire in the years before the First World Wat, then moving to the Lewisham area of London, where, in the 1939 Register, he was described as a Ship Owner’s Clerk. Playing on a high board for his club and a lower board for his county, he was a decent above average club standard player.
Board 2: Leslie Alec Seymour Howell (1900-1959: Alec Leslie on his birth record) was a shipping accounts clerk from the Edmonton/Tottenham area of North London, working for the Royal Mail Line. I have no other record of him playing competitive chess, but he was clearly a decent player. Here he is, pictured with his wife, Hilda.
Board 3: David(?) Storrar. Another rather unusual surname, again from the East of Scotland, so it shouldn’t be too hard to track him down. Here we hit a problem. D Storrar from Plaistow was solving chess problems in the Daily News in 1904. There was a D Storrar living in Islington in 1911, born in Perth in 1889, but he worked in banking, not in shipping. There was also a David Storrar on the electoral roll in East Ham (adjacent to Plaistow but some way from Islington) in 1913 and 1915. These three may be all the same person, or two or three different people. The 1911 Islington Storrar is apparently the same person as the David Duncan Storrar who married in Westminster in 1933, and died in Kampala in 1944, having worked for the National Bank of India. We can also pick him up in Aberfeldy, Perthshire, in the Scottish 1921 census, again described as a banker. If this is our man he must have been a ringer. Perhaps the East London 1904/1913/1915 David Storrar is a different, chess-playing, shipping person but I can’t find him on any census records or family trees. Who knows?
As a result of my problems with Mr Storrar, I decided not to go any further down Lord Kylsant’s list. None of the names looks familiar: I presume that, apart from Veitch, who had played competitively 20 years earlier, they were purely social players.
But what of Lord Kylsant himself. I’m sure you want to know more.
He was Owen Cosby Philipps (1863-1937), who had been a Liberal MP from 1906 to 1910, and then, switching allegiance, a Conservative MP between 1916 and 1922. His family also ran a shipping company, and he became involved with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, of which he became managing director in 1902. They gradually took control of various other shipping companies, including the Union-Castle Line, whose ship the Llangibby Castle, which had only been launched the previous year, served as the venue for this match.
Llangibby Castle in naval service during World War II
All was not well with the company, though. In 1928 investigations began looking into financial irregularities, and this match may well have been part of a charm offensive to garner favourable publicity before the trial took place. The nub of the issue seems to have been that they were accused of misleading potential investors about the company’s financial health.
When the trial took place in 1931 Kylsant, despite the efforts of his defence team led by Imperial Chess Club Vice-President Sir John Simon, was found guilty on one charge, and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, of which he served 10 months in Wormwood Scrubs. Large companies these days get away with far worse crimes.
If you have any corrections or further information about any of the players in this match, especially about those I’ve been unable to identify, please let me know.
There’s a lot more to write about the Imperial Chess Club: there will be further posts going backwards and forwards in time and introducing you to more of their members.
But first, taking a different view of the social function of chess in the inter-war years, there’s a significant anniversary to celebrate later this month.
Join me soon for another Minor Piece.
Sources and Acknowledgements:
ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
Wikipedia
BritBase/John Saunders
Chess Notes/Edward Winter
British Chess Magazine
chessgames.com
ChessBase 18/Stockfish 17
Gibbs, Jameson, Howell and Hooke websites/family trees
Kingston Chess Club website
Other sources linked to above
We remember IM Adam Hunt who passed away on Tuesday, December 3rd 2024 following a nine year battle with cancer.
Adam Ceiriog Hunt was born on Tuesday, October 21st, 1980 in Oxford and his mother’s maiden name was Williams. The UK Number one single was “Woman in Love” by Barbara Streisand. Adam shared his birthday with Kim Kardashian.
Adam attended The Cherwell School and The University of Sussex to study general biology.
Jeremy Morse, Adam Hunt (12), Nick Pert (11) and Nigel Short at the Lloyds Bank Masters
Adam became an International Master in 2001 and then a FIDE Trainer in 2016. According to Felice and Megabase 2020 his attained his peak FIDE rating of 2466 in January 2008 at the age of 28.
Adam Hunt in 1998 Cathy Rogers
In 2004 Adam was living in Headington, Oxfordshire and in 2007 he moved to Ipswich in Suffolk and was married in 2019. Recently, Adam and his partner became parents to Henry.
As a junior (and together with Harriet) Adam first played for Cowley Chess Club.
Most recently Adam played for 4NCL Blackthorne Russia, prior to that Bettson.com, Midlands Monarchs and Perceptron Youth with Witney being his original team.
He was Director of Chess at Woodbridge School in Suffolk and was the brother of IM Harriet Hunt
With the white pieces is (almost exclusively) an e4 player playing the main line of Ruy Lopez (8.c3) and favouring the Fischer-Sozin against the Najdorf.
As the second player Adam played the Sicilian Najdorf and a 50:50 mixture of the King’s Indian and Grünfeld Defences.
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