Category Archives: History

Minor Pieces 82: Imperial Chess Club (1): Chess on a Liner

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).

https://kingstonchess.com/sultan-khan-finally-recognised-as-a-grandmaster/

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 BCM here (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.

Richard Whieldon Barnett in 1929 by Lafayette © National Portrait Gallery

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.

https://johnchess.blogspot.com/2015/09/chess-snippet-no1-kate-belinda-finn.html

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

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Minor Pieces 81: Harry Jackson

If you share my interest in the subject of child prodigies, I’d probably start by referring you to this article by Edward Winter.

One name missing from this article, though, is that of Harry Jackson, who, in the late 1870s, was billed as the Yorkshire Morphy.

You might have met him briefly in my previous Minor Piece, but I’m sure you want to know where he came from, and what happened next.

Our story starts in what was in the 19th century the thriving mill town of Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, south of Leeds and Bradford, north east of Huddersfield.

Among those working in the cloth industry in the middle of the century was John Jackson. He and his wife Hannah had four sons and a daughter. While two of his sons, Samuel and Joshua, graduated into the middle classes, becoming solicitor’s clerks, the other boys pursued different careers. Abraham worked as a labourer before emigrating to Canada where he became a farmer. John, the youngest son, became (like my paternal grandfather in Leicester) a painter and decorator.

It was John who was the chess player, although I’d guess the whole family played socially. He and his wife, another Hannah, had a large family, three of whom played competitive chess. Harry, the Yorkshire Morphy, was his oldest son, born 16th December 1863. We’ll return to him later.

The next chess player in the family was William Ewart Jackson (1867-1951), his name suggesting that the family were supporters of the Liberal Party.

William (known as Willie) played for Dewsbury in the 1880s before moving to Leeds, where he worked for William Pape, a firm of glass merchants, and joining the local club. He was active in Leeds chess, both over the board and correspondence, until at least 1918.

Huddersfield Daily Examiner 15 February 1915

In what may have been one of his last matches (the Woodhouse Cup was suspended between 1916 and 1919) he was privileged to watch Atkins beating Yates in masterly fashion on top board.

Here are two games. Click on any move in any game in this article for a pop-up window.

White unnecessarily sacrificed a piece on move 39 when he might have held by going after the a-pawn.

The youngest of the chess-playing Jackson brothers was Joshua (1878-1935).

Joshua had an unusual competitive chess career, most of it taking place towards the end of his life.

There’s a J Jackson playing alongside Harry for Dewsbury in 1889, but it’s not clear whether this was John or Joshua.

It seems, though, that he only really started to take chess seriously after the First World War. In 1921 he entered the Yorkshire Championship, and also ventured to Manchester for the Northern Counties championship, where he was rather out of his depth, scoring only 1/7 against opponents such as Yates and Wahltuch, who shared first prize.

He was also playing correspondence chess, in 1922 winning his game for Yorkshire against Eric Augustus Coad-Pryor, whose father was at the time Vicar of Hampton Hill.

In 1923 he played again in the Northern Counties Championship, this time in Liverpool. That year the top section was a strong master tournament headed by Mieses, Maroczy, Thomas and Yates. Joshua played in the Major section, scoring 4½/9. Much interest was caused by the participation of 15-year-old Gerald Abrahams, who beat him in the first round.

In 1925 Scarborough Chess Club decided to run what they hoped would be the first of an annual series of tournaments over the Whitsun holiday. Joshua entered the major tournament, which was split into  A and B sections along with another group for late entrants. The top two players in each section advanced to the play-offs.

Not all the results were recorded, but we know that he drew with Frank Schofield of Leeds, who won both his section and the play-offs, and beat both Sydney Meymott and Stephen Ludbrooke of Rotherham. As he didn’t qualify for the play-offs, I’d guess he may well have been third in the Major A section. A highly commendable result for someone in his late forties with, as far as I can tell, little competitive experience.

The 1926 Scarborough tournament was graced by the presence of the great Alekhine, who duly won the top section. Joshua again played in the Major, this time coming second to Edith Holloway in his section, and, second again in the play-off for 4th, 5th and 6th places. There were always several ladies competing in Scarborough.

I note that J Jackson of Dewsbury’s Yorkshire Terriers won a lot of prizes in the Belfast Dog Show that year. Is this also Joshua, I wonder?

He didn’t take part in 1927, but was back again in 1928, scoring 5/9 in his section of the Major tournament.

In 1929 they were struggling for strong players, due, in part, to the local corporation withdrawing their support, so the top section was very much a mixed affair. There were two genuine masters, Tartakower and Sir George Thomas, two strong amateurs in Harold Saunders and Victor Wahltuch, and four lesser players, one of who was Joshua Jackson. Unexpectedly, he had made the big time late in life.

While he was no match for the top players, he managed a win and two draws against the other lesser lights of the tournament, scoring a respectable 2/7.

The games were all recorded by Tinsley and have now been published in a book by Tony Gillam and by John Saunders (no relation to Harold) on BritBase.

Joshua played the Old Indian Defence too passively against both Saunders and Wahltuch and was duly squashed.

Here’s the Saunders game.

Against both Tartakower and Thomas he sacrificed a piece unsoundly thinking he was going to regain it but missing a fairly obvious tactic.

Here’s the Tartakower game.

He played out a steady, uneventful draw against Edith Holloway, concluding in a level pawn ending. Against Bolland he seemed to agree a draw in a winning position with two extra pawns.

His one win came from an instructive ending, when his opponent chose the wrong queen trade, going for a lost rather than a drawn pawn ending. There were further mutual blunders on move 42.

Among the other competitors was the 15-year-old Maurice Winterburn, also from Dewsbury, who may well have travelled there with Joshua.

Scarborough hosted the British Championships in 1930, although the championship itself was replaced by an international tournament. Joshua didn’t take part this time, but continued to play both over the board and by correspondence into the 1930s.

Chess was now becoming increasingly popular with teenage boys, and Joshua, as Dewsbury’s star player, served as a mentor to  the youngsters coming through the door.

One of those was Maurice Child, who joined as a 15-year-old in 1932, and, 75 years later, had very fond memories of Joshua Jackson.

The outstanding personality between the two world wars was Josh Jackson. A fine player, among the top half-dozen in Yorkshire, and a great analyst. He was always ready to teach any young player and could play several games simultaneous and blindfold!

He was a barber and there was always on show in the shop a board with the latest position in his current correspondence game.

But it’s Harry you really want to know about, so we need to return to Dewsbury.

His father John first attended the annual meeting of the West Yorkshire Chess Association in 1876. Both John and Harry would also attend every year between 1877 and 1880.

In January 1877 John and Harry travelled to Lincolnshire, both taking part in the Second Class section of the inaugural Lincoln County Chess Association meeting.

The Chess Player’s Chronicle reported on this event.

The Westminster Papers added that “Master H Jackson is a young gentleman of promise, aged 13, and is likely to be heard from again in the world of Chess”. For the winner, Abraham Cockman, see this discussion.

It’s easy to forget, in these days of pre-teen grandmasters, how unusual it was for even 13-year-olds to take part in chess competitions, and interesting to note how much attention young Harry received at the time.

Inspired by this success, John was inspired to give young Harry a trial game against Samuel Walter Earnshaw at Leeds Chess Club a few weeks later.

Leeds Mercury 15 February 1877

At the gathering of the West Yorkshire Chess Association, there was concern that the strain of match play was too much for one so young.

Bradford Daily Telegraph 30 April 1877

Try telling that to Bodhana or Ethan.

In December a delegation from Huddersfield Chess Club led by John Watkinson, who would found the British Chess Magazine in 1881, visited the Dewsbury Working Men’s Club to assess their chess players. Watkinson took on ten of them, including  both John and Harry Jackson, in a simul.

Harry’s game was unfinished but Watkinson thought he could win. Stockfish agrees with his assessment.

Harry played in Lincolnshire again over the New Year,  but this time was less successful, as the Chess Player’s Chronicle reported.

The winner was Thomas Walter Marriott, not, as was reported in some sources, Arthur Towle Marriott. You’ll also note that Mary Rudge finished 3rd.

An interesting feature of this event was a displacement tournament, where the bishops and knights started on each other’s squares, an early precursor of Chess960.

A chess club had now started in Dewsbury, with Harry finishing in second place in their first tournament, and playing on top board in their first match, against Huddersfield.

John Watkinson visited again for another simul: this time Harry put up rather less resistance, inadvisedly choosing an unsound gambit as early as move 2..

After winning a prize in the West Yorkshire gathering, Harry ventured to London for the Counties Chess Association meeting.

He did well to win both his games against Rev John De Soyres, a pretty strong player (2146 on EdoChess at the time), who would later emigrate to Canada. You can read more about him here.

In this game his opponent, whom I believe to be Frederick Orme Darvall, who had been Auditor-General of Queensland 1867-77, but was by that time living in London, overlooked a mate in one.

Harry’s participation must have caused quite a stir, not just because of his age but because of his background as the son of a painter and decorator from Yorkshire. It was also not without controversy.

Batley Reporter and Guardian 10 August 1878

I like the description of John here, who sounds very much like some (but, I hasten to add, not all) chess parents today.

After this trip to the capital Harry continued playing locally, and also by correspondence.

He lost this game against the blind player Henry Millard.

Stockfish thinks it’s mate in 15, not mate in 11, but never mind.

In November 1879 he took the top board in a match between Dewsbury and Wakefield, winning two games and drawing one against schoolmaster John William Young, who taught English and Music at Wakefield Grammar School. John played in the same match, on bottom board, but was only able to conclude one game, which he lost.

In this game Harry’s speculative sacrifice proved successful.

In 1880 Harry returned to Lincolnshire, this time to Boston, where he won the 2nd class tournament of the Counties Chess Association.

But now he was playing less as he’d taken up a new hobby: composing chess problems. Between 1879 and 1881 many problems bearing his name appeared in a wide variety of publications. Two of them even won first prizes.

Problem solutions can be found at the end of the article.

Problem 1. #3 1st Prize (London) Brief 1880.

Problem 2. #2 1st Prize The Boys’ Newspaper 1881.

By 1881 Harry was living in London and involved with the City of London Club, taking on the role of librarian. In a match against St George’s he did very well to beat the very strong William Hewison Gunston 2-0. On 31st May the Chess Player’s Chronicle reported that ‘young Mr Jackson (lately Master Jackson of Dewsbury)’ had reached the last three in a handicap tournament before being eliminated.

I haven’t been able to locate him in that year’s census, but the rest of his family were all present and correct back in Dewsbury.

He remained in London for a few more years, playing, alongside his old friend Samuel Walter Earnshaw, in a simul against Mackenzie in 1882, and in 1883 beating Hugh William Sherrard in a match between the City of London 3rd team and Cambridge University, although he seems to have taken a break from composition.

At this point he may have moved back to Yorkshire. A couple of problems appeared in 1885, and then, in 1877, he turned up in York.

Yorkshire Evening Press 21 January 1887

Here he is at their 1887 AGM, resigning as secretary and being appointed vice-president, as well as winning their club championship and guaranteeing himself top board for the next year. Although this is the earliest mention I’ve been able to find he must have been there for several months.

Later records give the club venue as at Mr Jackson’s Cocoa House in High Ousegate, suggesting that this was Harry’s occupation at the time.

On 24 April 1889 the local unionist party held a major event. No less than 3000 people sat down for tea, followed by concerts, dancing, and a demonstration of living chess. Although this was not Harry’s party (he also played for York Liberals) he wasn’t above taking part. There was a pre-arranged game between two local dignitaries, and then a more serious game between Charles George Bennett and Harry Jackson.

York Herald 25 April 1889

The game was played to a pretty high standard considering the circumstances.

He had returned to the role of secretary of the Ebor Chess Club, but in 1890 he switched to the job of treasurer. The following year he resigned from that role and didn’t enter the club championship because he was away from home. But the 1891 census found him living in lodgings and working as a clerk, which suggests the cocoa house hadn’t been successful.

He continued to be very much involved with the Ebor club: as well as playing in matches he was giving regular simuls and lectures up until November 1894. After that, he seemed to disappear for a year or so.

In 1896 he turned up again – in another country.

Dundee Courier 24 February 1896

Here he is, having moved to Edinburgh. He would stay there some time.

The 1896/97  Scottish Electoral Register gives his address as 47 Comely Bank Place, north west of the city centre and not far from the Royal Botanic Gardens.

In this game from 1899 he overlooked a tactic.

In 1901 Harry was part of the Edinburgh team which won the Richardson Cup (Scottish KO Championship) for the first time.

Bridge of Allan Gazette 16 February 1901

And here, thanks to Edinburgh Chess Club, is the winning squad.

From https://en.chessbase.com/post/edinburgh-chess-club-200-anniversary. The 1901 Richardson Cup team members (Whitelaw was not in the five-player final) | John Moffat Studios, Edinburgh – courtesy of Edinburgh Chess Club

Harry Jackson is the burly (like his father) gentleman second from the left.

There’s no sign of Harry in the 1901 Scottish (or even the English) census. However (thanks to Alan McGowan for the information) he was in the 1901 Irish census, in Cork. He gave his occupation as a Commercial Traveller (Glass) and was living in a boarding house along with a number of other commercial travellers. He also said that he was married, but there was no sign of his wife.

In 1902 Edinburgh started two correspondence games against their counterparts in Rome, with Harry being one of the team.

Here’s the game in which Edinburgh played the white pieces, which concluded in early 1905.

Harry’s opponent in this game was an important figure in Scottish chess. The rather unimpressive 1. d4 d5 2. Qd3, which had been tried once by Pollock, seemed to have been his usual choice with White at this time.

Archibald Johnston Neilson might be considered Scotland’s answer to Antony Guest. He contributed an excellent column, usually twice a week, to his local paper, the Falkirk Herald, for 47 years, from 1895 right up to his death in 1942.

Perhaps he chatted with Harry after the game, asking him to contribute some problems. Since his early enthusiasm between 1879 and 1881 he had only composed occasionally, but now he entered the most prolific period of his chess problem career. For the next three years he regularly contributed problems, not just to the Falkirk Herald but also to the Mid-Lothian Journal.

His games from this period shine a light on both Harry’s strengths and weaknesses.

He could lose horribly when his opening went wrong, as in these two games. You’ll see in the first game that, although he was an Edinburgh player, he sometimes represented Glasgow in matches against English club. (Coincidentally, a Scotsman with the same name as his English opponent here wrote an excellent book on the King’s Gambit some years ago.)

Given the opportunity, Harry could demonstrate skill in the ending: another couple of games.

By way of contrast, here’s an exciting game featuring opposite side castling with both kings seemingly in danger.

Now for a few of his problems from this period of his life.

Problem 3. #2 Mid-Lothian Journal 21 Apr 1905

Problem 4. #3 Falkirk Herald (for Stirling solving contest) 15 May 1905

Problem 5. #2 Falkirk Herald 31 May 1906

To conclude, an easy one with a very familiar theme.

Problem 6. #3 Falkirk Herald 24 Apr 1907

The year 1911 brings us a surprise. Harry isn’t in the Scottish census, but turns up in the English census, in Salford, near Manchester, visiting John Harry Leyland and his family. He’s aged 47 and working on his own account as a dealer in glass bottles. Perhaps there’s some connection there with his brother William, who was also in the glass business.  He also has a wife, Ellen, aged 43: they’ve been married 17 years with one child, who is still alive, but not on the census record. Later records will tell us that their child’s name was May.

It’s a reasonable guess that Ellen, also known as Nellie, was related to the Leyland family, and we can locate an 1867 birth record which matches. The family were from Lancashire, but spent the first few years of their marriage in Smethwick. There’s no marriage record for Harry Jackson and Ellen Leyland from round about 1893-94, but there is one from 1902 in Chorlton, not all that far from Salford, so I’d guess that was where and when they married. There’s also a birth record for May Leyland in York in 1895 (no mother’s maiden name given), which was about the time he moved from York to Edinburgh. It seems like Harry and Ellen had had an affair, and perhaps the birth of their daughter prompted them to move to Scotland. They only got round to getting married some years later. Although we know Harry was on the 1901 Irish Census, I haven’t yet been able to find Ellen/Nellie and/or May on any of the England and Wales, Scottish or Irish census for that year.

Harry seems to have been back in Scotland by June, when he was elected one of the vice-presidents of the Scottish Chess Association. He was in august company: one of his fellow VPs was future Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law.

In February 1912 he returned to the Edinburgh team after an absence, facing Percy Wenman of Glasgow in the Richardson Cup final, the game being drawn on adjudication.

And that he seems to have taken a long break from chess, and it’s not for almost a decade that we pick him up again.

The 1921 Scottish census goes some way to confirming my suspicions.

Here we have Harry, 57, born in Dewsbury, Nellie, 54, born in Smethwick, and May, 26, born in York. Harry was still working as a glass dealer on his own account, while Nellie and May were engaged in household duties. Their address was 13 South Charlotte Street and their residence, right in the city centre, just off Princes Street very close to the castle, had six rooms. Harry’s glass dealing business must have been very successful: not bad for the son of a painter and decorator from Dewsbury.

After an absence of more than a decade Harry returned to the fray in 1923, continuing to play until late the following year, when, perhaps for health reasons, he retired from competitive chess.

Again there was an unexpected move: back to London. They may have been somewhere else first, but in 1927 Harry and Nellie showed up on the electoral roll in Hampton Wick, which is just over Kingston Bridge. Their address was 1 Garden Cottages, Park Road, which, I suspect is where Ingram House is now, just across the road from the Timothy Bennet memorial and a gate into Bushy Park.

IMG_7306.JPG

This was one of a pair of cottages: number 2 was occupied by John and Unity Chatterton: the unusually named (after her mother) Unity was Nellie’s sister, and it seems the families must have moved there at the same time.

He didn’t stay there very long, though, dying of heart disease just a few months later.

The death record tells us he had been a Medical Bottle Merchant, perhaps acquiring them from his brother William’s company and selling them to hospitals, pharmacies and doctors. His daughter May had travelled down from Scotland where she was living in a remote village on the shore of Loch Tay with her husband, William Eric Graham Wilson.

His old friend Archibald Neilson wrote an obituary.

Falkirk Herald 12 October 1927

The British Chess Magazine noted his death in October, and published this obituary in November.

British Chess Magazine November 1927

You’ll note that they mistakenly called him Henry rather than Harry, the same error they would make a few years later by calling Fred Yates ‘Frederick’.

“A fine and striking personality, he was of a reserved, if not shy, disposition.” “Generous to a fault, and of a quiet and modest demeanour.” A fine way to be remembered by your friends. In the words of the cobbler Timothy Bennet, whose memorial stands opposite where Harry spent his last days, “I am unwilling to leave the world a worse place than I found it”. I’d like to think Harry Jackson would have approved.

Blackburne’s prophecy wasn’t quite fulfilled, but he was still one of the best players around, first in Yorkshire, and then in Scotland. If he hadn’t hampered himself by playing ‘certain bizarre moves in the opening’ he might have ranked higher still. He was also a skilled and, at times, prolific problem composer.

Nellie, John and Unity were still in Garden Cottages in 1928, and by 1929 John and Unity’s son, also John, had reached voting age. By 1930, though, both cottages were in different ownership.

One further thought: in 1928 a new shop opened not very far from there. Perhaps Nellie walked up the road for a few minutes, turned right into Bushy Park Road, crossed the railway line over the level crossing (there’s a footbridge there now) and, coming to the end of the road, visited the Ham and Beef Store owned by the Misses Ada and Louisa Padbury to stock up on provisions. Perhaps she saw a young girl there as well: Ada and Louisa were juggling running the shop with bringing up their irresponsible sister Florence’s illegitimate daughter Betty. (Nellie, the mother of an illegitimate daughter herself, would have been sympathetic.) Perhaps John Chatterton, who was a schoolmaster, taught at the local primary school she attended. Perhaps the family also worshipped at St John the Baptist, Hampton Wick, just a short walk from their homes in the other direction. This was the church where, two decades later, Betty would marry, and where her older son would be baptised. Many years further on, he would tell the story of the chess career of Harry Jackson, the Yorkshire Morphy.

Another coincidence: Unity returned to Lancashire, dying in Ormskirk in 1961. At round about that time, Betty and her family visited Ormskirk, where her favourite cousin Marion, the bridesmaid at her wedding, lived for many years.

It’s another golden thread that binds us all together.

If you’re interested in my file of Jackson family games and problems, let me know and I can send it to you. If you have any more information about this family, I’d love to see it and perhaps incorporate it in this article. And don’t forget to join me again soon for some more Minor Pieces.

Problem solutions

Problem 1.

Problem 2.

Problem 3.

Problem 4.

Problem 5.

Problem 6.

Sources and Acknowledgements

I thought this might be a quick article to research, but it turned out to be anything but. You have someone with a common name who moved around quite a lot (Yorkshire, London, Edinburgh) and disappeared from the records for a time. There are a lot of traps for the unwary and I hope I’ve avoided most of them.

Steve Mann’s Yorkshire Chess History is excellent on the Jackson family in Yorkshire, but doesn’t pick up Harry’s time in Scotland. Rod Edwards (EdoChess) picks up most of his English results, including some of his London matches, but attributes at least one to a totally different Jackson, and also doesn’t record his Scottish results. His Scottish problems are not to be found in the online collections I’ve consulted, which sometimes give him a non-existent middle initial: HS Jackson. Confusingly there was also an HB Jackson from, of all places, Fiji, submitting problems to the Illustrated London News in the late 19th century, some of which have been incorrectly attributed to Harry. This was the unrelated Henry Bower Jackson, whose aunt was married to a distant cousin of Edmund and Eliza Thorold. He in turn was seemingly not related to Sir Henry Moore Jackson, who became Governor-General of Fiji in 1902.

ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
Scotland’s People
Yorkshire Chess History (Harry Jackson here)
Alan McGowan (Chess Scotland historian/archivist)
New in Chess (Edinburgh CC 200th Anniversary here)
EdoChess (Rod Edwards: Harry Jackson here)
BritBase (John Saunders)
ChessBase/Stockfish 17
Yet Another Chess Problem Database (Harry Jackson here)
MESON chess problem database (Harry Jackson here)
Google Books and Hathi Trust Digital Library (Chess Player’s Chronicle)
British Chess Magazine November 1927
Geoff Steele website

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Minor Pieces 80: Samuel Walter Earnshaw (2)

My first Minor Piece, 3½ years ago, featured the Reverend Samuel Walter Earnshaw, the missing link between Paul Morphy and my great grandmother Jane Houghton.

I promised another article at some point demonstrating some more of his games. It’s more than time I wrote it, so here it is.

Let me take you back first of all to 9 July 1858, when Earnshaw, a young chess addict in his mid twenties in his first ministry, at St Mary’s Church Bromley St Leonards in East London, just south of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, travelled into town to watch the young American star Paul Morphy in action against Samuel Standidge Boden. He recorded the moves, and, in 1874/5, submitted it for publication in the City of London Chess Magazine. You can read the first volume online here (it’s on page 280, with extensive annotations by Steinitz). The two Samuels became firm friends: I suggested in my previous article that Earnshaw might have been considered Boden’s Mate.

Here’s what Stockfish thinks of the game. Click on any move for a pop-up window.

Boden must have taught Earnshaw this variation, which would become his lifelong pet defence to the King’s Gambit.

The following year, he obtained a second curacy at St Thomas’s Church Birmingham, and, for some years, disappeared from the chess world.

His next job was in the small village of Nether Whitacre, 12 miles or so outside Birmingham, where he baptised several members of my great grandmother Jane Houghton’s family.

By 1865 he’d returned to chess, joining the Birmingham and Edgbaston Chess Club. Here he is, winning their club championship.

The Era 31 December 1865

He was also submitting many of his games, losses as well as wins, to the Birmingham Journal (editor unknown, appearing irregularly between 17 June 1865 and 26 December 1868, 57 articles in total, according to Tim Harding in British Chess Literature to 1914). One wonders if Earnshaw himself wrote the column, given that it published many of his games and stopped at the point when he left Birmingham.

Let’s look at a few of them.

You can judge from these games that Earnshaw enjoyed attacking chess, being particularly fond of the Evans Gambit.

He was also travelling down to London to play at the capital’s chess haunts, where he was winning games against opponents such as the German endgame expert Josef Kling.

In this game he was successful on the white side of the King’s Gambit.

At this time, matches between clubs were starting to take place. In 1866 he played for Birmingham in a match against Worcester. Although he lost both his games, his team scored a narrow victory.

Illustrated London News 14 April 1866

You’ll spot some interesting names in the Worcester squad. There’s Lord Lyttelton, Lord Lieutenant of Worcestershire and sometime President of the British Chess Association. Then we have the future Sir Walter Parratt, whom you might recall would, a few decades later, play in several Windsor – Twickenham matches.

At some point that year Earnshaw played, as you will have seen in the earlier article, a series of games against Steinitz. It’s uncertain whether these were played in London or in Birmingham. I showed you the games last time, but have now asked Stockfish for its opinion.

Another game between Earnshaw and Steinitz was published in 1879, without any indication of when (except ‘some time ago’) or where it was played. It might, I suppose, have been one of this series.

In the 1866-67 Birmingham Club Championship Earnshaw reached the semi-final, where he was paired against John Halford. After 8 games the scores were level, with three wins apiece and two draws, so lots were drawn, resulting in his opponent proceeding to the final.

Here’s one of his wins.

In April 1867 Earnshaw took part in another match, this time against a combined team from two other clubs.

The Era 21 April 1867

Lord Lyttelton was again representing the opposing team. I guess he was an honorary member of several clubs. Within a couple of decades exceedingly pleasant meetings between chess clubs would become much more frequent, strengthening the social bonds of friendship between Chess players. Long may they continue.

But then there seems to have been a break in Earnshaw’s chess career. In August 1867, as reported in my previous article, he was involved in a tragic incident, which must have affected him very much. Perhaps as a result, he left Nether Whitacre at the end of the year. His last baptism was in November, and by 22 December a new incumbent had taken over.

And look! There, on the other side, is Maria Howton (Houghton)’s illegitimate son, not, I should add, her first, fathered by a butcher in a neighbouring village, being baptised. Maria was a sister of my great grandmother Jane Houghton. Soon afterwards she’d finally marry, and Henry would take on his step-father’s surname, becoming Henry Tomes.

Earnshaw then took on a chaplaincy in Tremadog in North Wales, before being appointed headmaster of Archbishop Holgate School, Hemsworth, Yorkshire.

With a new job and five young children (born between 1861 and 1870) he must have been too busy to devote much time to chess, but by the mid 1870s he had joined both Sheffield and Leeds Chess Clubs. In 1874 he lost to Blackburne in a Sheffield simul, and in 1877 he was matched against a child prodigy in a friendly game.

Leeds Mercury 15 February 1877

Young Master Jackson didn’t exactly become a second Morphy, but his story is one perhaps for another time.

Here’s the game.

At the end of 1876, it appears that Earnshaw’s friend and fellow clergyman George Alcock MacDonnell took over the chess column of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. In 1877 Earnshaw returned to the ministry, becoming Rector of Ellough, a tiny village near Beccles in Suffolk, which nevertheless boasted a splendid church. His predecessor there, Richard Aldous Arnold, who had served his few parishioners for more than 60 years, came from the same family as Thomas Arnold of Rugby School and his poet son Matthew.

He now had more time for chess, travelling to London every seventh week to play at Simpson’s and Purssell’s, crossing swords, usually unsuccessfully, with the likes of Gunsberg, Blackburne, Mason and Bird, as well as winning miniatures against fellow amateurs. He would have been able to take the Great Eastern Railway from Beccles to their new Liverpool Street terminus, which had opened in 1874. He sent many of his games to Macdonnell, who was happy to publish them in his magazine column.

He was winning at one point in both these games, but ended up losing.

In the summer of 1878 Earnshaw played what would be his only public tournament, the Counties Chess Association meeting in London, but it didn’t go well for him. He only managed one draw from eight games (one may have been a loss by default) before withdrawing with four rounds still to play.

He threw away a good position again in this game.

The tournament proved controversial in more ways than one. The second class tournament included teenage prodigy Harry Jackson, whose father provoked some anger by interfering in one of his son’s games. Yes, we’ve all known parents like that. But that was a minor incident compared with the participation of the automaton Mephisto (operated by Gunsberg, although this wasn’t known at the time) in the Handicap Tournament confined to amateurs.

A few weeks later, Earnshaw tried a Fried Liver Attack against Mason when Black’s pawn was already on a6. Stockfish, unlike MacDonnell in his annotations, is happy with this, but again White lost the thread, ending up on the wrong end of a brilliancy.

Back in Suffolk, he was doing his bit to promote chess in Beccles.

Norfolk Chronicle 07 December 1878

By 1880 he was even described as a ‘chess celebrity’.

Norwich Mercury 14 January 1880

Here are a couple of wins against lower level opposition from this period.

His friend Samuel Boden’s death in January 1882 hit him hard: perhaps this is one reason why, by that time, his games were appearing less often in the press.

But in 1885 he turned up in an inter-club match. The St George’s team included Marmaduke Wyvill, runner-up in the first ever international tournament back in 1851, and formerly Rishi Sunak’s predecessor as MP for Richmond, Yorkshire.

Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News 24 January 1885

On the other side of the board, you’ll notice George Archer Hooke, who had another half century of competitive chess ahead of him, two boards above Earnshaw, with the splendidly named problemist Edward Nathan Frankenstein sitting between them.

But the next we hear from Samuel Walter Earnshaw, sadly, is from this death record, giving his name as Earnshaw-Wall (Wall was his mother’s maiden name, an affectation used by his son Walter Ethelbert Stacey Earnshaw-Wall .

The cause of death is given as Gout (21 days) and Pericarditis (3 days).

You’ll have read MacDonnell’s warm tribute to his friend in the previous article.

A true and enthusiastic lover of chess, we are told. Not a great player, but a good enough player, and really that’s all that matters. He was, for his day, well booked up, enjoying gambit play and demonstrating strong attacking skills, but all too often he would miscalculate or make careless mistakes and throw away his advantage. But he clearly enjoyed playing, whether against fellow amateurs or against the leading masters of his time. He, and many others like him, over the past 150 years or more, are what chess, in my opinion, is really all about. I’m delighted that my great grandmother and her family had made his acquaintance.

Join me again soon for more Minor Pieces.

 

Sources and Acknowledgements:

ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
Wikipedia
ChessBase 17/Stockfish 17
chessgames.com (Earnshaw here)
Yorkshire Chess History (Steve Mann: Earnshaw here)|
EdoChess (Rod Edwards: Earnshaw here)
British Chess Literature to 1914 (Tim Harding: McFarland 2018)
Steinitz in London (Tim Harding: McFarland 2020)
Other sources referenced and linked to above

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Minor Pieces 79: Antony Alfred Geoffrey Guest

Ralph Jackson won the Sydney Junior Championship back in 1976 and is currently ranked 7th among players in Australia born before 1960.

He is also intrigued by family history, and his interest was piqued in 2015 when a cousin showed him transcripts of letters his great grandfather’s brother had been sent by an English nephew in 1874 and 1875 concerning his family’s financial struggles, and his mother’s illness and subsequent death.

He idly, as one does, entered the name of his English relation, of whom he had previously been unaware, into Google and was both startled and delighted to discover that Antony Guest had been a prominent chess player and journalist. You could even make the case that he was the Leonard Barden of his time, and that, almost a century after his death, his influence can still be felt today.

When Ralph noticed that I’d mentioned Guest in an earlier Minor Piece he contacted me to ask what more I could discover about him. As he was on my list of future Minor Pieces, in part because of his local connections to me, I was more than happy to oblige.

The birth of Antony Alfred Geoffrey Guest (he didn’t use his rather splendid middle names for chess purposes) was registered in the second quarter of 1856 in Staines, Middlesex. His father Augustus was a schoolmaster, classicist and artist, the son of Thomas Douglas Guest. His mother Phoebe, also known as Elizabeth or Mary, was the daughter of refugees, originally from Eastern Europe, but who had arrived via Denmark. Although she was born in the Jewish faith she later converted to Christianity.

Antony was baptised by cricketing clergyman Henry Vigne in St Mary’s Church Sunbury on June 18 that year. Entirely coincidentally, I visited that church recently and took a few photographs.

I don’t know the age of the font on the left: the inscription records when it was moved, not when it was installed, but I’d guess it wasn’t the one in which baby Antony was baptised.

By 1861 the family, now joined by Isabella Katherine Celia Guest (who would later be known as Katherine or Kate), had moved to Thayer Street in central London, conveniently situated just a few yards from the Chess & Bridge Shop in Baker Street.

But on 20 June 1864 Augustus was admitted to Grove Hall Lunatic Asylum, where he died on 19 March 1866. The family were now struggling to maintain their previously affluent lifestyle, and Antony had to leave school early. By 1871 he was working as a clerk, while his mother was now a lodging-house keeper. Isabella was, for some reason, visiting a carter’s family in Hampshire.

Meanwhile, Phoebe’s three brothers, Abraham (who changed his name to Alfred Lionel), Henry and Maurice had emigrated to Australia in the 1850s, seeking their fortune in the Gold Rush.

Henry, in particular, did very well for himself. After visiting the gold fields he took a job in public service, later rising to become Registrar-General of Victoria as well as attaining the rank of Major in the volunteer forces.

It was Uncle Alfred who was the recipient of Antony’s surviving (in transcript) letters.

The first letter Ralph has is from July 1874.

Circumstances have gone very hard with us of late, my mother has been very ill lately, and has been unwell for the last two years, and find it very very difficult to make ends meet-, especially since food and other necessities have become so dear, a little assistance therefore now and then would be a very great comfort to her.

In October he wrote again with the sad news that his mother had died of gastric (typhoid) fever the previous month.

My poor mother left her affairs in a very unsettled condition, her debts amounting to nearly 70 pounds, and my sister and myself would be greatly obliged to you or our uncle Henry for any assistance you could give us. 

In December he informed Uncle Alfred that he had moved into a boarding house and his employer had lent him enough money to pay off his mother’s debts, but it appears that his family in Australia had been unable to help financially.

Ralph’s final letter, from April the following year, sees Antony telling his uncle that his prospects were now good, but thanking him for his offer of a home in Australia for his ‘delicate’ sister Isabella. If she took up the offer she wasn’t there long as she was back in England by 1881.

Here, then, was a formerly prosperous family that, due to illness and death, and perhaps also financial mismanagement, had hit hard times. Young Antony was doing his best to sort things out.

He also developed an interest in chess, watching one of the games in the 1876 match between Steinitz and Blackburne, and remembering, almost a quarter of a century later, how deeply absorbed he was.

We next pick him up in 1880, when he applied to become a member of the London Stock Exchange. The 1881 census found him on holiday at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, giving his occupation as Stock Jobber. A Stock Jobber was a private trader in stocks and shares, as opposed to a Stock Broker who worked for clients.  The Grand Hotel, according to Wikipedia, “was intended for members of the upper classes visiting the town and remains one of Brighton’s most expensive hotels”. He’d clearly turned round his family fortunes, then.

By this time, Antony was spending much of his spare time frequenting Purssell’s and other places where the game was played socially.

He also acquired a new job, as a journalist for the Morning Post, a Conservative daily newspaper which would be taken over by the Daily Telegraph in 1937. In 1883 a major international tournament took place in London and Antony was dispatched to report on it. His reports must have proved very popular as the paper commissioned him to start a weekly column, beginning on 28 May 1883.

The column would typically include a problem (sometimes two) for solving, a list of successful solvers of the problem from two weeks earlier, a game, either contemporary or historical, news from home and abroad, answers to readers’ questions and, on occasion, book reviews, such as this one.

Morning Post 16 July 1883

Guest was always very enthusiastic about promoting chess for ladies, so would have been pleased to support Miss Beechey‘s venture.

Although he was not yet playing in public, he started publishing a few of his own games later in the year. Here he gave his opponent odds of pawn and move (he played black without his f-pawn). As always, click on any move in the game for a pop-up window.

By 1884 he had also started to compose problems, at first in collaboration with future BCF President John Thursby.

You’ll find the solution to all problems at the end of the article.

Problem 1. #3 A Guest & J Thursby Morning Post 26-05-1884

At the same time he played in public for the first time, in a handicap tournament at Simpson’s. Here he was accepting odds of pawn and move from the masters, who, in his section, were Blackburne and Gunsberg. He won his section with 7½/9, but was beaten by Mason, also giving him odds, in the play-off between the winners of the two sections.

Buoyed by this success he took part in his first master tournament, an event run by the British Chess Association in London. His performance, considering his lack of experience, was rather remarkable.

Gunsberg, as expected, ran out a comfortable winner with 14/15, but Guest shared second place with Bird on 12/15.

In his game against Wainwright (see earlier Minor Pieces) he gave up the exchange in the opening but later trapped his opponent’s queen.

He won very quickly against Hewitt, who wasn’t given the chance to recover from a hesitation in the opening.

This was a most auspicious debut for a relatively young (by the standards of the day) player. It was probably anticipated that he would have a big future in master chess, but, as it turned out, his first high level tournament would also be his best result.

Later that year Guest was involved in an interesting debate with John Ruskin.

Morning Post 14 September 1885

The debate as to whether chess should be on the school curriculum is still going on today, almost 140 years later. Unlike many of my colleagues in the world of junior chess, I’m very much in agreement with Guest here. Ralph Jackson shares our views.

Here’s another problem, this time a joint composition with Louis Desanges.

Problem 2. #3 A Guest & L Desanges Morning Post 16-11-1885

On the same day that this problem was published there was some important news.

Morning Post 16 November 1885

A few months later the new club ran a master tournament in which Guest took part, but this time he was much less successful, only scoring 2/7, well behind Blackburne (6½), Bird and Gunsberg (both 5), and not helped by defaulting his game against Pollock.

I’m not sure whether or not this game was played in the tournament. Guest attempted to play like Steinitz, but it didn’t end well.

He had better luck later in the year in the British Chess Association Amateur Championship, which was won by Gattie (15/18), Guest sharing second place with previous Minor Piece subjects Hooke and Wainwright on 13½/18.

The eccentric Wordsworth Donisthorpe didn’t last long in this game.

Guest’s next tournament was towards the end of 1887: the British Chess Association Congress in London. He had originally entered a lower section, but, on the withdrawal of Skipworth, was, at the last minute, promoted to the master section, where he would face the likes of Blackburne, Burn, Gunsberg and the ailing Zukertort.

He got off to a flying start, winning his first three games, against Bird, Pollock and the perpetual backmarker Mortimer.

His game against Pollock wasn’t short of excitement. He defended the Evans Gambit and, after various adventures, his extra pawn on the queenside eventually turned into a queen.

In Round 3 Guest sacrificed two rooks to win Mortimer’s queen. He miscalculated some later tactics, but his opponent failed to take advantage.

After a loss to Lee in the fourth round, his fifth round opponent, Mason, failed to arrive because he had confused the start time. Guest was originally awarded a win by default, but it was later decided that the game should be replayed, Mason winning.

He then lost his last four games against some of the world’s strongest players.

Against Burn he played a totally unsound Greek Gift sacrifice in this position, overlooking Black’s diagonal defence.

The game continued 9. Bxh7+? Kxh7 10. Ng5+ Kg8 and now he must have realised that 11. Qh5 fails to Bf5, while the move he tried, Qd3+, failed to g6. Regular Minor Piece readers will recall Locock making the same mistake.

Here’s the tournament crosstable.

In August 1888 the British Chess Association Amateur Championship took place in Bradford. I’m not sure how ‘amateur’ was defined (Guest was a professional chess journalist, but not a professional player), but the 1888 event was a rather weak affair compared to other years, notable for the participation of Eliza Thorold in days when ladies very rarely competed against gentlemen. There was a master tournament taking place at the same time in which some of the stronger amateurs, such as Charles Dealtry Locock, participated. Guest won with a score of 10/12, just half a point ahead of 20-year-old Bradford born mathematician George  Adolphus Schott, who, however, defeated him in their individual game.

In this game, winning his opponent’s IQP proved decisive.

The Field 01 September 1888

In August 1889 Antony Guest reported some important news. A lady had won the championship of the Bristol and Clifton Chess Club.

Morning Post 19 August 1889

“There is no reason why (ladies) should not excel at the game.” Guest’s views, propounded in a Conservative-leaning newspaper, were quite enlightened for his day. It was not until 1895, though, that another – very successful – Ladies’ Chess Club was started.

In November and December 1889 the British Chess Association Masters and Amateur tournaments took place consecutively rather than simultaneously in London, so George Wainwright was able to play in both events, while Guest only took part in the latter event. In those days games in amateur tournaments were played on a fairly casual basis with games often being postponed when one of the players was unavailable.

It seems that this event ground to a halt just before Christmas once Wainwright had guaranteed victory. Several of the other players, including Guest, had been too busy to play many of their games.

It’s not known whether any further games were played after this incomplete crosstable was published.

The Field 21 December 1889

As you’ll see, Guest was the only player to beat Wainwright, in an opening variation still topical today.

He made a tactical oversight in his game against Thomas Gibbons. His opponent, a disciple of Bird, opened with 1. f4 and sacrificed a pawn on the kingside for nebulous attacking chances.

In this position, 25… Ne7 would have kept him well in control, but he erred by playing 25… Be7? 26. Rdg1! Qxh4? 27. Rxg7+ Kh8 28. Qxf5!!, after which he had to resign.

From here on, Antony Guest was playing less frequently, perhaps by choice, or perhaps because he was too busy with other activities.

The 1891 census found Guest and his fellow chess journalist Leopold Hoffer living in lodgings in Fulham Road, right by Stamford Bridge stadium, which would, in 1905, become the home of the newly founded Chelsea FC.

Just look at the name of their next door neighbour.

Yes, there he is: Raymond Keene. Not, to the best of my knowledge, related to his grandmaster and author namesake, although this Raymond’s son and grandson were also named Raymond Keene.

In an 1891 club match Guest’s temporary queen sacrifice brought victory against a strong opponent who really should have spared himself the last 20 moves.

Later that year, Guest and Hoffer were both involved in a telephone chess match against Liverpool.

Daily News (London) 14 December 1891

Liverpool won the first game, while the second game resulted in a draw.

In August 1892 Guest returned to tournament chess, taking part in the Counties Chess Association tournament in Brighton.

It didn’t go well.

Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News 13 August 1892

George MacDonnell was particularly scathing about his performance.

Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News 13 August 1892

He should make due preparation and exert himself to the utmost. He didn’t pull his punches, did he?

Guest went horribly wrong on move 10 against the eventual winner.

But he did manage to win a nice minature against Lambert.

The following month he reached this position in a game at Simpson’s against OC Müller.

Here, Guest played 27. Qg6!, an offer which can’t be accepted, and threatening Qxh7+, an offer which can’t be refused. Black should now play 27… h6, when the game is likely to be drawn by perpetual check after 28. Rh3 and a later Rxh6+. Instead he erred with 27… Bg2?, and had to resign after 28. Rg4, as h6 would be met by Rxg2.

This scathing criticism of his play in Brighton didn’t stop him playing in club matches, such as this one against Twickenham.

The Field 21 January 1893

You can read more about the Humphreys family here and about Guest’s opponent here.

He was also playing for Metropolitan, here losing a brilliancy against one of the ‘fighting reverends’. He really should have known his chess history, though. Wayte reached a winning position from the opening by transposing into a very well known predecessor.

By now Antony Guest had resumed his problem composing career, now without collaborators.

Problem 3. #3 A Guest Morning Post 1893

(Source given in MESON: however I wasn’t able to find it in a quick look to identify the date of publication.)

Problem 4. #3 A Guest Illustrated London News 25-08-1894

In 1895 he took part in the cable match between the British and Manhattan Chess Clubs, where he faced John ‘Paddy’ Ryan, capable, according to the press, of producing ‘startling brilliancies’.

Here, Ryan punted the speculative 21… Bxh3!?. What do you think? We’ll never find out what would have happened as at that point time was called and the game declared drawn.

The Ladies’ Chess Club had been founded in January 1895, and Guest used his Morning Post column to promote their activities. He was invited to give a simul at their prizegiving ceremony.

Morning Post 29 July 1895

Approaching his 40th birthday, it might have seemed like Antony Guest was a confirmed bachelor, but in 1896 he married Violet Harrington Wyman, some eleven years his junior. Violet’s brother Harrington Edward Hodson Wyman, was a knight odds player at the British Chess Club, later becoming vice-president of Ealing Chess Club. Her family firm were the publishers of Mortimer’s The Chess-Player’s Pocket Book.

In January 1897 Guest returned to tournament chess, playing in a ten-player selection tournament for that year’s Anglo-American cable match. Again he failed to complete the event, withdrawing after only three games, two losses and a win against Herbert Jacobs. Whether or not this was due solely to pressure of work is unclear.

This would be his last tournament, although he continued playing club chess. His performances, as you can see here (taken from EdoChess), show a steady downward trajectory after a promising start.

The year 1897 was significant for the publication of FR Gittins’ volume The Chess Bouquet.

As one of the Chief Chess Editors of the United Kingdom, Guest certainly qualified for inclusion.

We’re offered a photograph, a biography, a game (against Pollock, see above) and two problems. Here’s how Gittins describes him.

Physically, Mr. Guest is a perfect giant, his towering form and splendid proportions being well in evidence at the recent Hastings Festival. Socially, he is one of the best, full of bonhomie and good humour.

This is a charming mate in 2, which, unfortunately, had been anticipated by Conrad Bayer, who had published a mirror image back in 1865. It’s been reprinted on a number of occasions over the years.

Problem 5. #2 A Guest The Chess Bouquet 1897

The second problem, number 3 above, was unfortunately given with a missing pawn on c7, allowing an unwanted second solution.

He wasn’t the only Guest in The Chess Bouquet. There were also entries for Black Country problemists Thomas Guest and his son Francis Hubert Guest, who were not, as far as I can tell, related to Antony.

Here’s an exciting game played at Simpson’s against a French opponent.

Although now retired from tournament play, Guest was still making occasional appearances in consultation games, and club and county matches, both over the board and by correspondence. He was also publishing the occasional problem, such as this one, from 1900.

Problem 6. #3 A Guest Morning Post 12-03-1900

Later that year, Guest wrote a very interesting article entitled Steinitz and Other Chess-Players, first published in The Contemporary Review, and later republished in the USA in The Living Age.

The last three paragraphs, which take a broader social view of the game, are those which interest me most.

Here he is, celebrating the increasing popularity of chess among the working classes.

The present extraordinary growth of the popularity of the game must surely have some significance. Many of the players are young men engaged in offices, shops and factories; that their numbers include several clergymen, doctors, lawyers and members of other professions is not so remarkable. What strikes me as important is that so many young clerks, and others of similar occupation, should find their chief recreation, at least in the winter months, in the game of chess.

And here again on the artistic side of chess.

But I believe that in most of us there is some kind of artistic instinct, some aesthetic tendency, that finds no outlet in the humdrum of everyday life. If this is true it would sufficiently account for the increasing popularity of chess, for it is an art as well as a game. Its intricacies and combinations are capable of affording aesthetic delight that may be compared with the emotions produced by poetry, pictures or music — different, no doubt, but, to many, similarly sufficing. One need not be an expert to enjoy the pleasure of play; to the beginner it is like a voyage through an unknown country teeming with beautiful surprises. Every sitting reveals some new and captivating feature, suggests some tempting path, or affords some hint as to the best mode of pursuing the journey.

They don’t write them like that any more, do they?

You can read the whole article, along with the chapter about Guest in The Chess Bouquet, in this excellent article by Batgirl (Sarah Beth Cohen).

In  1901 it was time for another census. Strangely, Mr & Mrs Guest were not together. Antony was lodging in Bayswater, while Violet and her parents were lodging in Hastings, perhaps on holiday together.

He returned to the social aspect of chess in a 1901 article explaining how chess can build friendships between people of different nationalities.

Bromley and West Kent Telegraph 12 October 1901

For a few years now, Guest seemed, apart from his column, to stop both playing and composing, only resuming in 1907.

In this game against G Freeman from a Surrey v Essex county match he built up a strong attack from the King’s Gambit Declined.

Black had just blundered and now the rather neat 23. Rf5! forced resignation.

Problem 7. #3 A Guest Morning Post 12-08-1907

His game annotations were also being syndicated across various newspapers.

In July 1909 Antony Guest was honoured to be the subject of a feature in the British Chess Magazine, who published a photograph along with a biographical sketch contributed by Frank Preston Wildman.

 

Problem 8. #3 A Guest British Chess Magazine 07-1907

Here’s another photo from the same year taken by Emil Otto Hoppé (Wiki), who remarkably lived on until 1972. One of his publishers was Sampson Low, Marston & Co, founded by an ancestor and namesake of the current Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club Secretary.

At some point during this decade, Antony and Violet moved out to 1 Anglesea Road, Kingston, alongside the Thames half way between Kingston and Surbiton. This was a sizeable property, with 12 rooms excluding bathrooms. (I’m not sure whether or not it was the white building you can see behind the trees, which is now Anglesea Lodge, 28 Portsmouth Road.)

This is the view from the Barge Walk on the other side of the river.

IMG_0218.JPG

The 1911 census found them there, along with two servants, William and Marie Wilkins, a married couple of about their age, and the Wilkins’ teenage daughter Elsie.

Guest decided to join Surbiton Chess Club, playing in this match against Wimbledon.

Wimbledon News 23 December 1911

He was now becoming less active in the chess world, but in 1914 had the opportunity to express his views again on chess for schoolboys.

Cork Weekly News 25 July 1914

“In opening the way to friendships the practice of chess is very valuable to young men.”

I totally agree, although these days we might want to refer to young people instead. It worked for me, anyway.

Guest’s column continued through the war, although there was little chess action to report.

Here, he took the lack of competitive chess during the hostilities to promote the value of social chess in promoting friendship.

Cheltenham Chronicle 15 January 1916

His wife Violet sadly died in February 1921. That June the 1921 census found him still the head of the household at 1 Anglesea Road, and still working as a journalist. There was a resident housekeeper, but most of the property was taken up by motor builder John Bambury, who ran his own business in Kingston, along with his wife and five children aged between 17 and 22.

Guest was still seen regularly at major events such as Hastings and the British Championship, but by the 1924-25 Hastings Congress he was clearly in poor health and died after an operation on 29 January.

Linlithgowshire Gazette 13 February 1925

He didn’t leave that much money, compared to Hamilton Brooke Guernsey, one of whose administrators, Leslie Dewing, – one for coincidence lovers here – would have seen him at Hastings four weeks earlier, where he lost all his games in the Premier Section 1. (Coincidentally again, or perhaps not, there’s currently a marketing agency in Guernsey called Hamilton Brooke.)

The Morning Post was far from being Guest’s only chess outlet. At various times, according to Tim Harding in British Chess Literature to 1914, he also wrote columns for the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, the Daily News, Cassell’s Saturday Journal, Life and Tinsley’s Magazine.

Nor was chess the only subject on which he wrote. In 1891 Guest and barrister Sylvain Mayer co-authored Captured in Court, a novel with a legal setting. Some of the reviews were pretty harsh. “It is very unlikely to add to the reputation of either as story writers”, according to the Glasgow Herald. “… the bundle of incidents which does duty for a plot is as amateurish as the style”, proclaimed the National Observer. According to the Weekly Dispatch, “The plot is preposterous and the dialogue inane”. Preposterous plots and inane dialogues were perhaps more suitable for children’s literature, and, from 1895 onwards, he contributed to collections of short stories alongside such authors as E(dith) Nesbit, still much loved and remembered today for books such as The Railway Children.

In 1896 Antony Guest contributed an article on Some Old English Games to The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, describing games such as Pall Mall and Shuffleboard, illustrated by Albert Ludovici., followed by More Notes on Old English Games a year later, this time including Bandy-Ball and Nine Men’s Morris.

In the early 20th century he developed (pun not intended) an interest in photography, and in 1907 his book Art and the Camera was published by G Bell and Sons, who of course also published chess  books.

Morning Post 10 August 1907

This time the critics were unanimous in their praise. Modern reprints are readily available should you wish to read it.

In 1910 he turned his attention from cameras to cancer.

London Evening Standard 15 March 1910

It’s still a hot topic today, and the evidence is still inconclusive.

A man of many interests, as well as chess, then. Polymaths were probably more common then than now.

There are a couple of family issues to clear up.

Antony and Violet had no children. His sister (Isabella) Katherine married a wealthy man named Robert Edward McLeod in 1883. Robert’s brother Bentley was a chess player, representing Surrey, Brixton and Metropolitan, through the last of which he would have known Antony. Robert died in 1893, leaving his wife with two young children. Neither of them had children, so that was the end of Augustus Guest’s family. Katherine died, like her father, in a mental hospital, in Brighton in 1941.

To find Antony’s closest relations, then, we have to travel to Australia. Henry, whom you met at the start of this article, returned to England with some of his many children after his retirement. The family was hit by tragedy when his daughter Helen died in 1907. Helen and her older sister Ethel were very close, and, 18 months later, Ethel, suffering from depression as a result of the loss of her beloved sister, took her own life. There were mental health problems, then, on both sides of the Guest family.

Henry’s son Stanley later returned to Australia, married and had six children, the youngest of whom, Marisa, born in 1929, is still alive. Marisa, the closest surviving relation of Antony Guest, is the mother of Ralph Jackson.

One of the wonderful things about chess is that, even if playing competitive chess doesn’t appeal to you, there are many other ways of living your life through your favourite game. For Guest’s contemporary and acquaintance Charles Dealtry Locock it was through problems, writing and, in the last period of his life, teaching. For Antony Guest himself, it was as a journalist and occasional problemist. His record of almost 42 years might pale in comparison with Leonard Barden’s records, but it’s still very impressive. You can see a lot in common: both strong players who, finding competition a little bit too stressful, concentrated on their, in both cases, excellent newspaper columns, and perhaps did far more good in promoting chess in that way than they would have done by just playing.

He was in many ways a man ahead of his time as well. Although he wrote for a conservative newspaper, he was always very keen to promote chess for ladies, for the lower middle and working classes, and for schoolboys (it would be left to Locock to include schoolgirls). He also promoted chess for recreational and social reasons, to establish friendships on a local, national and international basis. I couldn’t agree more. Ralph Jackson is very lucky to be able to count Antony Guest as a close relation.

Problem Solutions:

Problem 1:

Problem 2:

Problem 3:

Problem 4:

Problem 5.

Problem 6.

Problem 7.

Problem 8.

Acknowledgements and sources.

Ralph Jackson – private correspondence
Batgirl (Sarah Beth Cohen) articles on Guest and Donisthorpe at chess.com
Krone Family website here
ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
ChessBase/MegaBase2023/Stockfish16.1
chessgames.com (Antony Guest here)
EdoChess (Antony Guest here)
British Chess Literature to 1914 (Tim Harding)
The Chess Bouquet (FR Gittins)
British Chess Magazine July 1909 (thanks to John Upham)
Wikipedia
Yet Another Chess Problem Database
MESON Chess Problem Database

Other sources referred and linked in the text.

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Minor Pieces 78: John Edward (Jack) Redon

Jack Redon was one of the elder statesmen at Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club for the first 20 years or so of my membership. On completing my studies in 1972 I joined the committee and got to know him well.

Jack was a pretty strong player who was known for his artistic interests. He was a commercial artist by profession, designing things like LP sleeves, but had a particular interest in amateur dramatics and seemed to be involved with every artistic society in the area.

He seemed to live a life of some affluence, sharing a large Victorian house near Richmond Bridge with his wife and sister. Richmond Junior Chess Club would later spend many years in another large house on the same estate, which had been converted into a community centre.

(I also visited the house regularly years later, to teach a chess pupil whose name, coincidentally, was also Jack.)

If you have an interest in 19th century domestic architecture it’s well worth a stroll round these roads. You can also read more about the Twickenham Park estate here and here.

The distinguished poet John Greening also knew Jack very well at about this time, describing him well in a memoir.

He was indeed an extraordinary man, full of wise saws and anecdotes. He did tend to repeat them time and time again at every committee meeting, but, given his age and seniority within the club, we forgave him his eccentricities. He generously made his residence available for these meetings in the mid 1970s, and, when one of our younger members suggested we might meet in a pub instead, he didn’t take kindly to the idea.

While John Greening recalls the unperformed playscripts, I recall the skirting boards being lined with paintings, which, like his plays, were created for his own pleasure rather than for profit. My recollection is that they may well have been in the style of Odilon Redon: and he also told us that he was Odilon’s great nephew. But was it true?

Almost certainly not. Odilon (Wiki) came from a wealthy slave-trading family and, although born in Bordeaux, was conceived in New Orleans, like Paul Morphy the son of a Creole mother. Jack’s family background was very different. It has little to do with chess, so if you want to see some moves you’ll have to jump ahead, but if you’re interested in social history you’ll want to read on. Or even Redon!

Redon is a rather unusual French surname specifically associated with the South West of the country. But let me take you back more than 300 years, to 1722. We have a record of a clandestine marriage for one Peter Redon, a weaver living in Stepney. If you see a weaver with a French surname in that part of London at that time you’ll probably assume that he was a Huguenot. Maybe, but Jack’s ancestors later embraced the Jewish religion, calling their children Elias, Abraham and Reuben, Leah, Esther, Rachel and Rebecca.

By 1798 the Redons had crossed the river to Southwark, where Elias (a labourer) and his wife Rachel were accused of running a brothel. In 1839 Abraham Redon, perhaps a son of Elias and Rachel, was on the other side of the law, a victim of a crime. He was working as a toll collector at the Cambridge Heath tollgate in Hackney and, while he was sleeping, two of his assistants, Henry Walker and John Hollingshead, stole his takings. Both were found guilty at the Old Bailey and sent to prison.

In the 1841 census we have John and Leah Redon, along with their children Alfred (20) and Esther (15), living in Woolwich, with John working as a toll collector. Alfred’s occupation is not legible, but certainly not ‘toll collector’. Woolwich is not all that near Hackney. Alfred was actually Abraham Alfred, so was John actually Abraham John, or were Abraham and John brothers sharing an occupation?

Esther, who had an illegitimate daughter, spent much of her later years in and out of the workhouse, their records describing her as a Jewess. Abraham Alfred, showing the first sign of artistic talent in the family, worked as a painter and signwriter. He married Rose Sawyer in about 1854 (or perhaps he didn’t: I haven’t been able to find a marriage record), but, tragically, none of their first six children lived to see their seventh birthday. Their two youngest sons did survive, though: John Edward, born in 1867 (baptised in the Church of England) and Reuben Alfred, born in 1869. Rose died in 1887, and by the time of the 1891 census Abraham Alfred, unable to look after himself in old age, was in the workhouse, where he died the following year.

So far, the Redon family history is one of poverty and tragedy, very different from the affluent environment in which their namesake Odilon grew up. But Jack gave the impression of being fairly affluent himself. What happened to change the family’s fortunes?

Reuben Edward Redon, continuing the family’s artistic tradition, making a living first as a glass embosser (in 1901 he was living in the road running alongside my old school, Latymer Upper), and later as a designer of showcards, running a business in Harrow for several years.

Harrow Observer 22 September 1911

He was married, but had no children, and died, by that time living near his brother in Peckham, in 1927.

We need to follow John Edward Redon and see what happened in his life. In 1871 he was in Manor Place, Walworth (just south of Elephant and Castle) with his parents, brother and aunt. In 1881 the family were still at the same address: John had left school and was working as an office boy. In 1891, his mother having died and his father in the workhouse, the two brothers were living in a boarding house near the Old Kent Road, the cheapest place on the Monopoly board. John was now, following in his father’s footsteps, working as a signwriter.

By the 1901 census John was working as a clerk for London County Council, and boarding just south of Waterloo Station, right by Westminster Bridge. Also there was a dressmaker named Bessie Emma Varney, and, in October that year they married. Bessie’s family seems to have been London working class, and, her mother having died when she was only 5 years old, she and her younger sister were brought up by relatives. John and Bessie had three children, René Bessie (1902), John Edward, named after his father, who would always be known as Jack (1905) and Reuben Ernest (1908-1912).

At some point, I’d guess from circumstantial evidence, round about 1903, John left his job with the council and formed a partnership with Danzig born Charles Ernest Rokicki. They started two companies, a moneylending business based at John’s home address in Lambeth, and a shop in the Old Kent Road.

In 1907, John, like his grandfather before him, fell victim to a robbery when a habitual criminal named Reuben Vaughan (there are a lot of Reubens in this story) paid for a gramophone and 46 records using a forged cheque, receiving a sentence of six years penal servitude.

Their partnership was dissolved in 1910, with John apparently buying his partner out.

London Gazette 5 July 1910

The family business of Musical Instrument and Cycle Factors and General Furnishers must have been successful. In 1911 they were living above their Old Kent Road shop. John, perhaps no longer involved in the moneylending business, was described as a Dealer in Musical Instruments (Gramophones), while Bessie was assisting in the business. They were able to afford to employ a Domestic Servant (Mother’s Help) to give Bessie a hand in looking after the children. Young Reuben, sadly, would die the following year.

Within the space of two decades the family had gone from workhouse poverty to employing a servant. At some point between 1911 and 1921 they moved their shop to 185 Queen’s Road, Peckham.

During the First World War John was called upon to serve his country as a clerk in the Admiralty: he was still there in 1921. Bessie, who seems to have been a remarkably strong and ambitious woman, was running the business on her own, describing herself in the 1921 census as a Music Seller. René had no occupation recorded, although I’d guess she was helping out in the shop, while 16-year-old Jack was a part-time art student.

As well as studying art, Jack was becoming interested in the Art of Chess, joining Battersea Chess Club.

Richmond Herald 29 September 1923

Here he is, in 1923, becoming the second ever winner of the Wernick Cup, which is still, more than a century on, the fourth division of the Surrey individual championship. In 1962 the name of another promising young player, RD Keene would be engraved on the trophy. It’s easy to forget that, in these days of preteen grandmasters, a century ago it was relatively unusual for teenagers to take part in competitive chess against adults.

His would be a solid rather than a meteoric chess career, though, developing into a strong club player who, by 1926, was good enough to be selected for an important county match.

Birmingham Daily Post 11 October 1926

He lost his game, but Surrey’s greater strength on the higher boards saw them through. Crossword addicts will notice an anagram on the other side.

While he continued playing chess, Jack soon took up a new interest, in amateur dramatics, setting up a group in his local church. (By now the family were very much Church of England.)

South London Observer 02 November 1929

You’ll note the name Florence Warden, also known, from what I recall, as Flossie, who was living with her grandmother and step grandfather, having lost her mother in childbirth when she was only one year old.

John died in early 1931, and it’s quite possible that Jack now had to take a greater role in running the family business. He still had time to play chess, though, and by 1935 had reached top board for Battersea.

South Western Star 29 November 1935

He had also reached the top section of the county championship, but in this game from 1937 he was out of his depth against a strong opponent. (For this and all games in this article, click on any move for a pop-up window.)

In this county match game from the same period against an electrician from Brighton, he played an opening gambit and probably didn’t have enough for the pawn, but when he threatened a queen sacrifice his opponent carelessly overlooked it.

and probably didn’t have enough for the pawn, but when he threatened a queen sacrifice his opponent carelessly overlooked it.

The amateur dramatics must have been going well too, as in 1938 he married his fellow thespian Florence Warden.

You’ll immediately note Jack’s artistic signature, appropriately for a member of a family involved in signwriting. There are two other things to note as well. The marriage took place not locally but in the City of London, at St Michael Paternoster Royal, a church associated with Dick Whittington, which had been rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire. He gave an address nearby, which, I suspect, was a dummy address enabling him to marry there. You’ll also see that his late father’s occupation was given as Accountant, which doesn’t tie in with other records. Perhaps he did the accounts for the family shop, or maybe it was a euphemism for Moneylender.

His marriage certainly didn’t stop his chess career: at this point he was very active in both club and county chess, winning a prize for one of the best performances in the Battersea first team. If you look at some of the other names here you’ll observe that it was a very strong club at the time.

Streatham News 08 September 1939

Although marriage didn’t stop Jack playing chess, the war did. Just three days before this report appeared, and with war just having broken out, a national registration of the civilian population was taken.

Bessie, now in her late 60s, was still running her shop in Peckham, selling gramophone records, musical instruments and cycles. Jack and Florence were living there as well, as was Florence’s elderly grandmother Matilda, an old age pensioner. Florence had a temporary job operating an Elliott-Fisher bookkeeping machine. Jack was described as a designer of sight tests on glass, etching and stencil cutting.

Most of London’s chess clubs, including Battersea, closed for the duration, so there was little opportunity now for Jack to play chess. Matilda died in 1942, and Bessie in 1943. I presume Jack and René would have inherited the business, selling it and moving, along with Florence, to their new home in Twickenham. They must have done pretty well for themselves: not only were they able to afford a large house in a desirable area, but it seems that they no longer needed to work for a living. Not quite Old Kent Road to Mayfair, but still pretty impressive.

Jack threw himself enthusiastically into his theatre and chess hobbies, which would dominate the rest of his life. In 1944 he was a member of the Twickenham Community Players, writing and producing plays for them, just as he had done back in Peckham. They even met for rehearsals at his house (was he the founder, I wonder), but sought larger premises at the new Georgian Club in Richmond.

Jack joined Kingston and Thames Valley Chess Club, which, like Barnes Village, continued meeting during the war. He also rejoined Battersea, who resumed their activities in 1945, where he would win their club championship in 1960.  There was now no active chess club in Richmond or Twickenham, though, and this was something he wanted to change. He started a chess section at the Georgian Club, which had modest beginnings.

Richmond Herald 02 June 1945

Retired schoolmaster Phillip Flower, who lived round the corner from Jack, had been strong enough to play in the Major Open at the 1911 British Championships, as well as the First Class in 1921 and 1922, where his victims included future stars Fairhurst and Buerger. Jacob Zafransky ran (or at least he did in 1939) a radio and cycle shop again just round the corner from Jack: there might have been a work connection as his business was very similar to that of Jack’s family.

By the following year they were able to raise a dozen players for a match against an established club.

Richmond Herald 08 December 1945

Jack had managed to recruit two very strong players for the top boards: eccentric philosopher, schoolteacher and much else Dr JD (John David) Solomon, and civil servant Geoffrey Ashcroft, who, although he lived in East Sheen, was a friend and colleague from Battersea Chess Club. It’s pleasing to see that Reginald Tarrant (and it was lovely to hear from his son-in-law recently) provided a link with the ‘Old Richmond and Kew Club’.

The following March, Jack gave a simultaneous display, which proved very successful.

Richmond Herald 30 March 1946

The prizewinning Miss Nesbitt must have been Violet Ella Nesbitt Kemp, an architect’s daughter, who would, some three decades later, rejoin what was by that point Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club. Remarkably, being born in 1888 and dying in 1992, she lived to the age of 103 . I was led to believe she was an actress, but perhaps only on an amateur basis, which might have been where she met Jack.

In 1947 a match was played against Twickenham Chess Club, which had recently reformed, the previous club of that name having folded some years previously. Richmond seem to have dropped ‘Georgian’ from their name, now established as Richmond Chess Club.

Richmond Herald 01 February 1947

Captain Samuel Ould (a civil servant in 1939, although he always used his military rank from the First World War) provided another link with the previous Richmond and Kew Chess Club, while Ted Fairbrother would remain a member into the 1970s.

A few months later Kingston and Thames Valley Chess Club staged a megamatch against a combined Richmond and Twickenham team (just as they did again in 2022). The Teddington club would have been the NPL, the Sunbury club British Thermostat and the Whitton club perhaps Old Latymerians.

Richmond Herald 14 June 1947

You’ll see that Jack, as their club champion, represented Kingston on this occasion. By beating Blake, who had, many decades earlier, beaten Rev John Owen, who had beaten Morphy, this gave him a Morphy Win number of 3.

Being a member of three chess clubs wasn’t enough for Jack Redon. He also played for Twickenham in the London and Middlesex Leagues. (I haven’t found any online information about the founding of the post-war Twickenham Chess Club, but I suppose he might have been involved.)

Here he is, playing in a match against Uxbridge in 1950.

Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette 08 December 1950

His opponent here, Harry Bogdanor, was a rather dodgy pharmacist (see discussion here) and the father of political scientist (and David Cameron’s tutor) Vernon Bogdanor. FG (Griff) Griffiths was still involved with Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club into the early 1970s. I also have an interest in SA Lester, who, I hope, was precision tool maker and amateur musician Sydney Arthur Lester. At any rate he was the only SA Lester I’ve been able to find in the Twickenham area at the time. Perhaps I’ll tell you more in a future article.

Richmond and Twickenham Chess Clubs were clearly working closely together, in 1952 sending a combined team down for a friendly match at Hastings. Jack scored a fortuitous win on top board against an English international.

Hastings and St Leonards Observer 06 September 1952

You’ll notice endgame study expert John Roycroft on Board 2. I ‘m sure AL Fletcher was L Elliott Fletcher, author of Gambits Accepted, and Miss Fletcher his daughter Lesley, who would later marry Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club’s Robert Pinner. I lose to George Anslow in the corresponding fixture in 1974.

In 1954 the team visiting Hastings, although billed just as Twickenham, was quite a lot stronger, seeming to have recruited some players from other Middlesex clubs rather than Richmond for the match.

Hastings and St Leonards Observer 11 September 1954

I don’t know much about Edgar Brown, whose club was sometimes billed as Wembley & Hampstead. He won the RAF Championship and 1944 and shared 1st place in the 1950-51 British Correspondence Championship. Another Twickenham player in this match was was chess administrator and bigamist Alan Stammwitz (see this thread).

Playing on second board in the 1956 Hastings v Twickenham match he defeated a highly respected opponent with an original sacrifice in the Max Lange Attack. Although it wasn’t quite sound, his opponent, a bank official who, like all the best chess players at the time, had retired to Hastings, was unable to cope, rapidly going down in flames.

Throughout this time, Jack remained very active in amateur dramatics. He never had the looks of a leading man, but excelled in comic and character roles. In 1946 his portrayal of Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night was ‘handled with a delightful touch and never over-played’, while in 1949 he was ‘well cast as the cowardly Oswald’ in King Lear. I’m not sure whether that was a compliment or an insult.

Although he was an enthusiastic participant in club and county chess, tournaments were, with one exception, not for him. In 1957 he successfully entered the qualifying tournament for the British Championship, held that year in Plymouth.

In 1956 he’d appeared in the BCF Grading List at 5a, about 2050 Elo, and remained round about that level for several years – a pretty strong amateur who could – and did – hold down a high board in club matches and a low board in county matches.

Here, he found the going tough, finishing on just 3 points out of 11.

He was well beaten in this game, where his opponent exploited his space advantage with a central breakthrough.

He demonstrated his tactical skills in this game, winning with a powerful kingside attack.

You can see him here, the bald-headed gentleman standing in the centre, with Milner-Barry and Franklin seated in front of him

1958 saw a merger between Richmond and Twickenham Chess Clubs. The result, Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club, is still thriving today. I’m not sure what part Jack played in the merger, but he must surely have been involved and given his blessing.

I’m not sure whether or not he was playing for Richmond & Twickenham in this game, a clash between the 1923 and 1962 winners of the Wernick Cup.

A few years later, Ray would treat the opening in more restrained fashion. Here, he gave Jack some difficult chances, but he was unable to take advantage.

It was only a few years later that Keene would publish his first book, Flank Openings, which I bought and eagerly devoured. It influenced my choice of opening when I faced Jack in the 1969 Richmond & Twickenham Club Championship. I called this system, a cross between a Réti and an Orangutan, the Yeti Opening.

It worked well here (I think the opening was never Jack’s strong point) and soon won a piece, but didn’t want to win hard enough against such an illustrious opponent and let him escape with a perpetual check. (If I’d won, as I should have done, it would have given me a Morphy Win number of 4, although I may well have beaten him in a casual game at some point.)

You might assume that chess players with artistic interests would play artistic chess, while those with scientific interests would prefer scientific chess. It doesn’t always work, but it was certainly true of Jack Redon. From the small sample of games here we can see someone who, at least with the white pieces, favoured dashing gambits and sacrifices, which, while not always sound, often worked over the board.

By now well into his sixties, there was inevitably some decline in his playing strength, but he continued to take part in club matches as well as serving on the club committee. In 1981 he designed a new logo for what was then the British Chess Federation.

His beloved wife Florence died in 1985, but he remained on the grading list until 1988, his clubs listed as Richmond Community Centre as well as Richmond & Twickenham. Suffering from dementia, he eventually moved to a care home in nearby Hampton Hill, where he died in 1994 at the age of 89. It appears, although there are some inconsistencies in the records, that his sister René died in Hastings in 1996, bringing an end to that branch of the Redon family.

Jack may not have been, as he believed, or wanted us to believe, the great nephew of Odilon, but I think he was something far more interesting. A man who was fortunate enough to be able spend the last fifty years of his life indulging in his favourite hobbies. He was a very good, but perhaps not brilliant, actor, playwright and artist, but he wrote plays and painted pictures not with the intention of making money but for the sheer joy of doing so. He played chess for many decades for the same reason: not a great player, but certainly a good enough player: champion of Kingston and Battersea, British Championship contender, achievements not to be taken lightly. Perhaps many of us can learn from the way Jack lived his life.

But more than that, he contributed an enormous amount to the local community in Richmond and Twickenham by founding and organising clubs and societies so that others had the opportunity to share his passions, and, through them, form friendships and enhance their lives. I believe that hobby clubs, whether chess, theatre or a thousand and one other wonderful things, are of vital importance for social cohesion, mental health and many other reasons. All of us at Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club have reason to be grateful to Jack Redon, who might justifiably be seen as the club’s founder. I hope he’s looking on benignly, delighted that, many years later, the club is still thriving.

Sources and Acknowledgements:

ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Archives
chessgames.com
BritBase
ChessBase/MegaBase
Surrey County Chess Association website
Battersea and Kingston Chess Club websites
Brian Denman
John Saunders

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Minor Pieces (77): James Kistruck

Last time I told you about Charles Dealtry Locock’s pioneering work in promoting chess for girls in the 1930s, and, in particular about his private pupil Elaine Saunders, the first genuine girl chess playing prodigy.

She wasn’t the first girl chess prodigy, though. Back in 1891 9-year-old Lilian Baird was making headlines round the world with her skilfully constructed chess problems. You can read about her in this book, and find out more about her chess problemist mother here.

Even in 1891, Lilian wasn’t the only chess kid in town. An even younger composer, seven-year-old James Kistruck from the Essex seaside town of Clacton on Sea, was being celebrated as far away as New Zealand…

The New Zealand Mail 10 April 1891

… and Louisville, Kentucky (although he’d apparently moved from Clacton to London).

The Louisville Courier-Journal 19 July 1891

Here, below, is the first problem: very crude and obvious but just the sort of thing a bright 7-year-old might come up with.

The second problem (the Hackney Mercury for 1891 isn’t available online so I don’t have the exact date) is rather more sophisticated. The key move creates no threat, but prepares three different mates depending on which piece Black moves. I’m sure you can work out the solution for yourself, though.

After the publication of these problems in 1891 nothing more was heard from young master Kistruck. Where did he come from and what happened to him next? I really wanted to find out.

Kistruck (some branches of the family used the variant Kistrick) is a very unusual surname, ideal for a one-name study.

The earliest mention online is of the birth of one Hosea Kistrick in the village of Kirtling, Cambridgeshire (south east of the horse racing town of Newmarket) in 1611. By the late 18th century, and now usually known as Kistruck, they’d migrated east to the villages to the west of Ipswich, Suffolk: Aldham, Elmsett and Offton. Like most of the population outside the big cities at the time, they worked in agriculture. While some of them were humble labourers, one branch had done well for themselves, rising to become farmers. These are the people we need to look at.

Rather confusingly, this family had a lot of sons, all with names beginning with J, and always starting in some order (usually with the father’s name coming first) with James, John and Joseph. The family’s favourite sport was cricket, which must have been confusing for the scorers with so many J Kistrucks in the village team, but some of them also had an interest in chess.

Let me take you back to Thursday 12 February 1862. It was a quiet day at Tollemache Hall, but the peace of the countryside was shattered by the sound of a shotgun and a cry of pain. Farmer Joseph Clarke Kistruck’s gun had accidentally been discharged, shooting him in the thigh. The loss of blood sadly proved fatal.

Essex Standard 27 February 1863

Although the family must have been reasonably well off, it wasn’t going to be easy for his widow Amelia, left with twelve children to look after, and, using the 19th century equivalent of GoFundMe, a fund was launched to help her, soon raising an impressive amount of money.

Suffolk Chronicle 09 May 1863

The twelve children included five sons and seven daughters, and, as this is, in part, a one-name study, we need to consider the boys. There were Joseph Clarke junior (1843), James (1850), John (1851), Jeremiah (1852) and Josiah Ernest (1861).

Jeremiah Kistruck
Jeremiah Kistruck (1852-1938), who spent time in an orphanage after his father’s death, later moving to London.
Susanna Elizabeth Kistruck (1847-1927), who emigrated to Kansas.

It’s the two oldest of the boys, Joseph and James, who, in a small way, made their names in chess.

Joseph Clarke Kistruck junior moved to Ipswich after his father’s death, where he found work as an engine fitter, marrying in 1877 and then moving to Clacton on Sea, where his son, of course also named Joseph Clarke Kistruck, was born in 1883. (I wonder what he would have thought of Clacton’s new MP.) This was, as regular readers will know, during a decade in which many chess clubs started up, and chess was beginning to look like the game we now know.

In January 1889 a new chess opened in Clacton, and Joseph was one of the first members. On Easter Monday they played a match against a team of visitors, whose number included Joseph’s brother James.

East Essex Advertiser and Clacton News 26 April 1889

Joseph also took second place in the inaugural club championship, which concluded the following month.

The last time we hear from him, is in a match against local rivals Colchester in 1890. Perhaps he had to retire from chess for health reasons as he sadly died in September 1892. His son, though, followed in his footsteps, playing in a match for Clacton, again against Colchester, in 1906.

Joseph Clarke Kistruck III (1884-1964) pictured at Pinehurst Barracks, Farnborough in November 1917.

James, meanwhile, had moved to London, working for Jeremiah Rotherham & Co, a large department store on Shoreditch High Street, and, unmarried, living on the premises.

His name started appearing in the press in December 1887 as a regular solver of chess problems. Apart from the friendly match against his brother’s team we have no evidence of him playing club chess.

For several years his name was seen regularly in both local and national papers, which, week after week, would publish lists of those who had submitted correct solutions to their puzzles. He was clearly an accomplished solver.

In 1891 he tried his hand at composition, but the g and h files have been cut off in the online newspaper.

East Anglian Daily Times 25 April 1891

The following week the paper reported that the position, as published, had multiple solutions, and that a black pawn on g7 should be added. The correct solution, if indeed there was one, doesn’t appear to have been published.

If you also add a white pawn on g4 you get a sound, but not at all interesting, mate in 2.

Perhaps any problemists reading this can come up with something better.

By 1893 he was solving far less frequently, and, by the dawn of the 20th century he’d stopped completely, only returning late in life, with mentions in 1928 and 1929, and living on until 1935.

Back in 1909 he unexpectedly married a much younger woman, and their only son, James (of course) Frederick Kistruck, was born the following year. (It looks like they might have had an earlier son with the same name who didn’t survive, and whose birth was registered shortly after his death.) They had now moved out to North London, but he continued working for the same company. Even at the age of 71, in 1921, and by that time living in Wood Green, he was employed as a warehouseman.

There were a couple of other Kistrucks who occasionally solved chess problems. In 1889 there was a J S Kistruck (‘we note the different name’), who might have been a cousin, James Syer Kistruck. In 1893, EE Kistruck from Offton solved a problem in the East Anglian Daily Times. This must have been Joseph and James’s sister Edith Eliza Kistruck (1859-1908): it’s good to know that chess was played by girls as well as boys in the Kistruck family. Edith never married, moving around a lot and spending time with her siblings. In 1885 she gave birth to an illegitimate son, Oliver, in Bethnal Green (near where James was working) who died the following year.

Having looked at the chess careers of the Kistruck family, we need to return to the 7-year-old problemist James Kistruck, living in either London or Clacton, depending on which source you prefer, and having a problem published in Hackney.

James Kistruck was living near Hackney at the time, solving and attempting to compose problems. As of 1891 he had no children. His older brother Joseph was living in Clacton and playing over the board, and had a 7-year-old son, but his name was also Joseph, not James.

It seems to me that this was just a harmless hoax, cashing in on the fame of Lilian Baird to get a couple of problems published. I’d guess James composed them, and used his name, but his nephew’s age and home town to get them published.

If you have any other thoughts, do let me know, and don’t forget to come back soon for another Minor Piece.

 

Sources & Acknowledgements:

ancestry.co.uk/newspapers.com
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
Wikipedia
Yet Another Chess Problem Database (www.yacpdb.org/)

 

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Minor Pieces 75: Charles Dealtry Locock (2)

Last time I considered Charles Dealtry Locock’s tournament and match play in the 1880s and 1890s, at which point he gave up competitive chess.

But it was far from the end of his chess career. Alongside his chess playing he had a parallel career as a chess problemist.

In The Chess  Bouquet (1897) he was given the opportunity to say something about how he started to take an interest in the problem art.

Here’s that first problem.

Problem 1 (#3 Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News 18-02-1882). The solutions to all problems are at the end of this article.

Here’s another early problem.

Problem 2 (#2 Southern Weekly News 29-12-1883).

But these represented just an early dalliance in the problem world. Concentrating on his studies and over the board play, he took a break from composition, only returning in 1890.

This miniature had probably first been published in Tinsley’s Magazine a few months earlier.

Problem 3. (#2 Morning Post 06-01-1890)

He published a few more problems in 1891, gradually increasing his production over the next few years as he stopped playing tournament chess.

Most of the problems were mates in 2 or 3 moves (quite a few of them, sadly, cooked, which suggests, as does his play, a certain carelessness), but also a few selfmates. By now he had a column in Knowledge, which ran from 1891 to 1904, which provided an outlet for some of his compositions.

While some of them were complex, he also published a lot of simpler problems suitable for casual readers, often employing perennially popular themes such as queen moves to corners, star flights and switchbacks.

Problem 4. (#2 The Field 1891)

In 1892 Locock made a brief excursion into the world of endgame studies, with this early example of Co-ordinate Squares.

You’ll see Locock was living in Kingston at the time, but by the September he’d moved down the road to Putney Heath.

I haven’t been able to find anything further, either in the 1892 or 1893 BCM, perhaps unsurprisingly, since the position is drawn, regardless of whose move it is. If it’s Black’s move, though, the only drawing move is 1… Kg7.

If, however, you start with the white king on a1 instead, then you have an excellent study. It was published with this correction in the Deutsche Schachzeitung in October 1914.

White wants to meet Kf6 with Kd4, and therefore also wants to meet Kg5 with Ke3. There’s only one route to get there.

Study. (W to play and win British Chess Magazine July 1892 (corrected))

In the 1893 Christmas Special issue of the British Chess Magazine, Locock offered a puzzle involving retroanalysis.

Here’s the published solution. I’ll leave to experts in this field to comment.

His problems didn’t win a lot of prizes, but this Mate in 3 from 1896 was a first prize winner.

Problem 5. (#3 Manchester Weekly Times 1896)

In The Chess Bouquet Locock discussed his ‘decidedly heterodox’ views on chess problems.

He concluded like this.

This is one of the problems he composed for The Chess Bouquet.

Problem 6. (#2 The Chess Bouquet 1897)

Although he retired from competitive chess in 1899, Locock certainly didn’t retire from composition, although he was increasingly drawn to 3-movers rather than 2-movers. Some of them are pretty complex, but this one is rather sweet and certainly accessible to the casual solver.

Problem 7. (#3 British Chess Magazine February 1909)

This more complex mate in 3 was a 1st prize winner in 1933.

Problem 8. (#3 1st Prize British Chess Magazine 1933)

Now let me take you back to 1909. On April 1 (note the date), Locock wrote to the editor of the BCM:

A sui-mate is what we’d now call a selfmate. Black compels a reluctant White to deliver checkmate.

For those of you who aren’t bilingual, here’s the game.

Locock would maintain an interest in these tasks, known as Synthetic Games, throughout the rest of his long life. In 1944 he published a whole host of them in the BCM. Note that, unlike in Proof Games, there are often multiple solutions.

You might like to try a couple here.

Synthetic Game 1: White opens 1. Nc3 and delivers a pure mate (there’s only one reason why the king cannot move to any adjacent square) with the queen’s rook on the 5th move. (British Chess Magazine May 1944)

Synthetic Game 2: Black mates on move 5 by promotion to a knight (this is also a pure mate). (Manchester Weekly Times 28 Dec 1912)

If you’re interested in synthetic games you’ll want to read this comprehensive and authoritative paper written by George Jelliss.

There, then, you have the problem career of Charles Dealtry Locock, who, as well as being a very strong player during the 1880s and 1890s, held an important and, you might say, unique place in the chess problem world for more than 60 years. If you’d like to see more of his problems, check out the links to YACPDB and MESON at the foot of this article.

But there was much more to Locock’s chess life than playing and composing, as you’ll find out next time. Be sure not to miss it.

 

Solutions to Problems and Study (click on any move for a pop-up board).

Problem 1.

Problem 2.

Problem 3.

Study.

Problem 5.

Problem 6.

Problem 7.

Problem 8.

Synthetic Game 1.

Synthetic Game 2.

 

Sources and Acknowledgements

ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
Wikipedia
The Chess Bouquet (FR Gittins: here)
British Chess Magazine (various issues)
Internet Archive (here)
Chess Archaeology (here)
The Problemist
Yet Another Chess Problem Database (here)
MESON Chess Problem Database (here)
Synthetic Games (George Jelliss: here)

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Minor Pieces 76: Charles Dealtry Locock (3)

You’ve already read about Charles Dealtry Locock’s career as a chess player and problemist. In the final part of this trilogy you’ll learn more about his life, and about what might be seen as his most lasting and significant contribution to chess.

You’ll recall that he married his first cousin, Ida Gertrude Locock, and that they had two daughters. Both were named after characters in Wagner operas who met unfortunate ends: was Wagner his favourite composer?

Elsa, born in 1891, received her name from a character in Lohengrin, who, to cut a long story short, died of grief after her brother was turned into a swan. She worked for a time as a shorthand typist, did voluntary social work for the Red Cross during the Second World War, and died unmarried in 1985.

Her sister, born in 1894, was named Brynhild, a version of Brünnhilde from the Ring Cycle, a Valkyrie who, to cut a very long story short, rode her horse into a funeral pyre after the death of her lover Siegfried. (If you’d like to find out more, Anna Russell is considerably shorter and much more amusing than Wagner.) In fact her name was registered twice, the second time as Hilda Vivien, which she seemed to prefer. She worked as a children’s nurse, and died, again unmarried, in 1950.

Although Locock gave up competitive over the board chess in 1899, he played on Board 2 for the South of England in a correspondence match against the North the following year. He was matched against the mathematician George Adolphus Schott, winning a brilliant game. As always, click on any move for a pop-up window.

In the 1901 census the family were living in Camberley, on the Surrey-Hampshire border, along with four servants: governess, parlourmaid, cook and housemaid.

Charles’s occupation was described as ‘living on own means & literature”. His particular literary interests were the poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Swedish poetry and drama. It appears that he was also still writing a regular chess column in the science magazine Knowledge at this point (some of them are available online).

The same year he had his first book published: neither literary nor chess related, but about the game of billiards. Entitled Side and Screw, you can read it here.

Chess and billiards weren’t Locock’s only games. He was also very much involved in the game of croquet, editing the Croquet Association Gazette between 1904 and 1915, and being employed as the Croquet Association handicapper from 1907 to 1929.

More books followed: Modern Croquet Tactics in 1907, Olympian Echoes, a book of poems and essays, in 1908 (here), and, in 1911, an edition of Shelley’s poetry (Volume 2 here).

In October 1910 he made a rare appearance at the chessboard, taking part in one of a series of consultation games between the veterans Blackburne and Gunsberg. His team was unsuccessful, but the game was exciting.

By the 1911 census the family were in the Hertfordshire market town of Berkhamsted, now employing only two servants, a Swiss cook and a parlourmaid. Charles’s occupation was given as Editor and Handicapper.

In 1912 he celebrated his 50th birthday by writing his first chess book, which, unfortunately, doesn’t appear to be available online.

Hampshire Post and Southsea Observer 13 September 1912

By 1915, Charles Dealtry Locock, returned to playing chess, having joined the Imperial Chess Club, here giving a simultaneous display.

West Sussex County Times 01 May 1915

Here’s his loss against solicitor George Bodman, formerly of Bexhill, whom he may well have known from his time in Sussex chess.

It’s possible his marriage had broken up by this time, and he was living in London. Either way, the social atmosphere of the Imperial (about which there’s much to be researched and written) would have been ideal for Locock, who loved chess while not enjoying the pressures of competition.

Linlithgowshire Gazette 16 July 1915

Locock continued at the Imperial for the rest of the decade, and, in 1920, returned to correspondence chess, playing on top board for Kent against an Italian magazine, and scoring the full point when his opponent went wrong in a bishop ending.

In the 1921 census, Charles Dealtry Locock, claiming to be still married, was visiting a widow named Rose Edith Heath in 4 Ferry Road, Barnes. (I got off the bus about 100 metres from there the other day: perhaps I should have walked in the other direction to say hello.) I don’t know whether he was just visiting a friend, or whether there was anything else to their relationship. Ida and Elsa, working for the Red Cross as a shorthand typist, were living in Redcliffe Square, just south of Earl’s Court. Brynhild was in Scarborough, a trained nurse but working as a servant for a young doctor, perhaps helping to care for his infant son. I’d like to think she bought her groceries from Edward Wallis, whose shop was only a short walk away.

By this time, Locock was very much engaged in translating Swedish poetry and plays, particularly those of Strindberg, into English (for which he was awarded a silver medal in 1928), and resigned from his post at the Imperial Chess Club in 1923. He was still actively involved in the world of chess composition, though, publishing another collection of problems and puzzles in 1926.

You might think that, approaching his seventies, it was time to wind down his chess career, but in fact he had a few more moves to make.

In 1930 he published a booklet entitled 100 Chess Maxims (for Beginners and Moderate Players). Perhaps I’ll review this further another time. For the moment I’ll just say that, while it contains much excellent advice, some of the maxims are decidedly odd.

No. 4, for instance (translated into algebraic by Carsten Hansen) advises you not to play your c1-bishop to f4. Devotees of the London System won’t be happy.

Then there’s:

37. The object of the game is to mate, and as quickly as possible. Captures are only made to deprive the king of his defenses.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I always thought the object of the game was to mate as certainly as possible. If you look back to some of his games in the first article of my Locock trilogy, you’ll see some examples of him playing in exactly this way 40 years or so earlier.

This book might, in part, have been occasioned by Locock’s new career – as a chess teacher in schools, specifically girls’ schools, and specifically the Oratory Central Girls School in Chelsea. He even wrote an article about Chess for Girls for the first issue of the Social Chess Quarterly.

Hastings and St Leonards Observer 18 April 1931

This seems to have been a rival tournament to the British Girls Championship, with which Locock was also involved, which had taken place a few months previously, with the same winner. See BritBase (here) for further information on this event.

Here’s Honor having just won the earlier tournament.

The Sphere 10 January 1931

The school prizegiving that year even included a chess play.

Chelsea News and General Advertiser 20 November 1931

By 1935 one of his very young private pupils was doing rather well.

Falkirk Herald 22 May 1935

She was Elaine, not Eileen, and her family were living on the prestigious St Margaret’s Estate, on the borders of Twickenham and Isleworth.

Elaine Zelie Pritchard, née Saunders (07-01-1926, 07-01-2012)

That July she was successful again in a rather unusual event organised by her chess teacher.

Linlithgowshire Gazette 02 August 1935

Almost half a century later, Elaine wrote (British Chess  Pergamon Press 1983):

My father, assisted by a 2d. (= almost 1p) book of rules from Smiths, taught me the moves at somewhere round the age of five. We were rescued by the problemist CD Locock who noticed me playing in a girls’ tournament two years later. It was he who brought me up on a diet of the Scotch, the Evans and any gambit that was going. We analysed them in some depth – for those days – and my severe task-master made me copy out long columns of dubious lines. He also made me his guinea-pig for his Imagination in Chess and it is small wonder that I still find it hard to resist a sacrifice, and much of my undoing comes from premature sorties such as f4 and Qh5.

In retrospect he must have been a brilliant teacher. Starting in 1936 a succession of girls’ titles came my way including the FIDE under-21, and in 1939 the British Ladies at the age of 13. It is hard to assess how strong or weak one was at the time because there has been such a marked improvement in the standard of play among women over recent years. At all events, those pre-war years were happy ones, especially away from chess which took second place to horses and more physical pastimes.

(See here for more on Elaine.)

Yes, we have another book, Imagination in Chess, published in 1937.

From the author’s introduction:

Based on my own chess teaching experience I have partial sympathy with Locock’s views. I noticed at Richmond Junior Club that children learnt the Two Rooks Checkmate early on, and, if they were winning, would head for that mate, spurning quicker mates in the process. On the other hand, most checkmates don’t require sacrifices, apart from a few stock patterns which need to be remembered, just accurate calculation. While we all like to play brilliant combinations, my view is that, at club level, more games are lost by unsound sacrifices than won by sound sacrifices. Over-emphasising sacrifices to young and inexperienced players can be dangerous.

We have 60 positions, in each of which (with one exception) you can play a problem-like sacrifice to force mate. A halfway house, if you will, between problems and game positions.

A couple of examples:

This is a mate in 3: you’ll want to sacrifice your knight, and then your queen.

Here, you have to mate in 4 moves, being careful to play your sacrifices in the right order: knight, then queen, then the other knight.

If you’d like to see more you’ll be delighted to know that this book has very recently been updated, edited and published by Carsten Hansen, with 100 Chess Maxims added as a bonus. You can buy it here.

Locock also played training games with Elaine, one of which survives.

By the time of the 1939 Register, and with war imminent, the Saunders family had taken the precaution of moving out of London, and were staying in the George & Dragon Hotel in Princes Risborough – and Charles Dealtry Locock (Author, retired) was staying with them. It’s not clear how long they stayed there, and whether or not Locock was only visiting.

When he was writing about synthetic games in 1944, one of his correspondents and collaborators was a young RAF pilot named David Brine Pritchard. I’d like to think they met and perhaps played each other, if only because it would give me a Locock number of 2 (I played David, but not Elaine). I’d also like to think he introduced David to Elaine, as they married in 1952. Their daughter, Wanda, was also a strong chess player.

Charles Dealtry Locock died in Putney on 13 May 1946. Here’s his probate record.

I haven’t been able to identify Nina Agnes Wood for certain: the only likely candidate is a journalist named Agnes Nina Wood (1871-1950). I wouldn’t want to speculate.

His wife lived on until the age of 94, dying in 1962 at the same address and leaving £63975 11s: were they reconciled at the end of their lives?

There, in three parts, you have the long and eventful chess career of Charles Dealtry Locock. In the first part we looked at his competitive chess career in the 1880s and 1890s, winning the British Amateur Championship and representing his country. The second part considered his career of more than sixty years as a creative and innovative problemist. But perhaps it’s for his final act, as a pioneer in promoting chess in schools, and, particularly chess for girls, that he should be most remembered. Elaine (Saunders) Pritchard’s memoir confirms that he was a brilliant teacher.  More than that, he also pioneered the idea of solving composed positions to teach creativity and imagination. Many chess teachers today encourage their students to solve studies and problems for this reason, but Locock got there first. He should always be an inspiration to all of us involved in junior chess.

Come back soon for the story of another chess prodigy.

Sources and Acknowledgements:

Many thanks to Carsten Hansen for sending me a copy of his new edition of Locock’s Imagination in Chess + 100 Chess Maxims.

Many thanks also to Brian Denman for sending me his file of Locock’s games.

Other sources:

ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
Wikipedia
Internet Archive
ChessBase 17/Stockfish 16.1

 

 

 

 

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Minor Pieces 74: Charles Dealtry Locock (1)

Sir Charles Locock (1799-1875) was an interesting chap. Queen Victoria’s obstretician, he also pioneered potassium bromide as a treatment for epilepsy and conducted the autopsy in the notorious Eastbourne Manslaughter Case, establishing that an unfortunate 15-year-old boy had died as a result of corporal punishment.

Locock had five sons, four of whom had distinguished careers. Charles junior became a barrister, Alfred a clergyman, Sidney a diplomat and Herbert an army officer. The middle son, Frederick, though, was the black sheep of the family. He married the illegitimate daughter of a labourer and brought up a son who claimed he was the illegitimate child of Princess Louise. There’s little evidence that this might be true, so we’ll move swiftly on to the Reverend Alfred Henry Locock.

Alfred married Anna Maria Dealtry: their four children were Ella, Charles Dealtry, Henry and Mabel.

Charles Dealtry Locock, born in Brighton on 27 September 1862, was a lifelong chess addict. He started playing chess at his prep school, Cheam, which is now in Hampshire, but really was in Cheam in those days, delivering a back rank mate at the age of 6 or 7, and later winning a tournament there. I would have thought chess tournaments at prep schools were quite unusual in those days. Moving to Winchester at the age of 13, and playing chess on his first evening there, he could find no one to beat him, instead immersing himself in the world of chess problems.

In Autumn 1881 Locock went up to University College Oxford, where he takes up the story.

Wainwright (see here, here and here) was sufficiently impressed to select his adversary for matches against the Oxford city club, Birmingham and the City of London club. At first he was placed on bottom board, but rapidly worked his way up the board order.

In those days the standard of play in the universities wasn’t strong, and their teams would take on the Knight’s Class players of the City of London Club (who would receive knight odds from the top players). Here, he describes a game was one of those matches.

I’m not sure how reliable Locock’s memoir is. We do have a game against Staniforth with a bishop on b2, but otherwise it doesn’t match this description. As with all the games in this article, just click on any move for a pop-up window.

By the 1882 Varsity Match Locock had reached Board 3, where he scored a draw and a win against Edward Lancelot Raymond. He already had quite a reputation as a tactician, the BCM describing him as ‘perhaps the most brilliant and attacking player now at either University’. Unfortunately, the score of his second game, decided ‘by an uncommonly happy series of finishing strokes’, does not appear to have survived.

The 1883 Varsity Match found Locock on top board against Frank Morley. The first game was a solid draw, but the second was more exciting. Zukertort adjudicated the game a draw, but today’s engines give Morley (Black, to play) a winning advantage after h5 (or h6) followed by Ng4.

That summer he played his first tournament, the Second Class section of the Counties Chess Association meeting in Birmingham, scoring 10/14 for second place, a point behind Pollock.

In October that year he took part in a Living Chess exhibition in his home town of Brighton. It all sounded rather splendid.

The Graphic 27 October 1883

Playing against auctioneer and estate agent Walter Mead, early exchanges led to Locock being a pawn down. Exchanges in living chess games are always fun, but didn’t really play to his strengths. (The game had actually been played the previous day: they re-created the moves for the exhibition.)

Round about this point we have a mystery. Several correspondence games between Locock and FA Vincent were published, dated 1884. Locock’s memoirs suggest they were actually played much earlier, when he was still at school. They also state that his opponent was Mrs Vincent, while newspaper columns of the time refer to this player as Mr Vincent. We can identify Francis Arthur Frederick Vincent, a retired Indian Civil Servant who had been born in Singapore, living in Cam, Gloucestershire (not far from Slimbridge Wetland Centre) with his wife, born, rather strangely, Sutherland Rebecca Sutherland. It’s not clear which of them was the chess player, or whether they might have collaborated on their games. If you know more than I do, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

In the 1884 Varsity Match Locock again faced Frank Morley on top board. This time they only had time for one game, and, more than compensating for the previous year’s incorrect adjudication, he was awarded a win in a lost position, even though Bird, the adjudicator, spent 15 minutes determining what the result should be.

In summer 1884 Locock was promoted to Division 2 of the First Class tournament in the Counties Chess Association gathering, held that year in Bath, finishing on 4½/10. First place was divided between Fedden, Loman and Pollock.

However, his game against Blake, where, after getting the worst of the opening, he successfully ventured a positional queen sacrifice for two minor pieces, demonstrated exactly why his creativity, imagination and tactical ability were so highly regarded. He must have seen at move 18 that his queen was being trapped.

Here’s a position from a game against Colonel Duncan of the St George’s Club (whom I suspect was this rather interesting fellow) he sacrificed four pawns for nebulous attacking chances against his opponent’s Benoni formation.

He was rewarded when the Colonel overlooked his threat, playing 31… b3?? (there were plenty of good defences available), allowing 32. Qxh6!! Kg8 33. Rxg6 with a winning attack.

In the 1885 Varsity Match Locock was again on top board, this time facing a former prodigy, John Drew Roberts. This game suggested that, although he excelled at attacking play, he was less comfortable in endings.

Here, Locock (Black, to move), would have been slightly better after a move like d4 or a5, but misguidedly played 32… b5?, allowing 33. b4!, fixing some pawns on the same colour square as his bishop.

A few moves later he erred again: Bd7, for example, should hold, but after 35… Rf8? 36. Rxf8+ Kxf8 37. b4! he was saddled with a bad bishop against a good knight. Roberts converted his advantage efficiently.

From these examples, we can see that Locock was a player with very specific strengths and weaknesses.

The 1885 Counties Chess Association meeting was held in Hereford, and, in the Class 1A tournament he shared first place with another old friend of ours, George Archer Hooke.

The game between the two winners was a very exciting affair which Locock really should have won, but positions with queens flying round an open board are never easy to calculate.

Locock’s fifth and last Varsity Match appearance in 1886 was another defeat, when he misdefended against Herman George Gwinner’s kingside attack. That year he finally graduated with honours in Classics.

In the Counties Chess Association meeting in Nottingham he encountered two members of the Marriott family in the Minor Tournament Division 1. John Owen took first place, ahead of Edwin Marriott, with Locock, Thomas Marriott and George MacDonnell sharing third place. Although he lost to both Marriotts he managed to beat Owen, who blundered in what should have been a drawn ending.

Locock then took a job as an assistant master at Worcester Cathedral School, whose headmaster, William Ernest Bolland, was a chess acquaintance of his.

In August 1887, placed in a stronger section, he disappointed in the Counties Chess Association meeting in Stamford. Blake won with 5/6, and Locock’s solitary point left him in last place.

Later in the year (I’m not sure how he managed to get the time off his teaching job) he took part in the Amateur Championship in the 3rd British Chess Association Congress. He won his qualifying group, shared 1st place in the final group, where he encountered his old University friend Wainwright, and won the play-off against Frederick Anger, making him the British Amateur Chess Champion.

August 1888 gave Locock his first taste of international chess. The British Chess Association held a tournament in Bradford, and Locock was invited to take part. His score was respectable given the strength of the opposition.

It could have been so much better, though. He certainly should have beaten MacKenzie in the first round.

He lost in ridiculous fashion against the tournament winner in a game which he might later have confused with the Staniforth game.

Either Nxg7 or the simple Rxe1 would have given him a very large advantage, but instead he played the absurd Qh6??, simply overlooking that Black could block the discovered check with f6.

His game against Mortimer again demonstrated his prowess in the Ruy Lopez.

On 12 February 1889, at St George’s Hanover Square, Charles Dealtry Locock married his first cousin, Ida Gertrude Locock, a daughter of Charles’s army officer Uncle Herbert. They can’t have had much time for a honeymoon as he was soon in action again over the board.

In a March 1889 match between Oxford Past and Cambridge Past (the first of what would become an annual event) he faced an interesting opponent in economist John Neville Keynes, the father of John Maynard Keynes.

Again he attacked strongly in the opening, but missed the best continuation, allowing his opponent to equalise, and then blundered in what should have been a drawn ending.

They met again in the same fixture two years later, the game resulting in a draw.

At the end of 1889 Locock resigned his position at Worcester Cathedral School, briefly taking a post at Hereford Grammar School before moving to London.

The BCA ran another strong international tournament in 1890, this time in Manchester. This time Locock was less successful, although he did score 50% against the top four.

Unlike two years before, he made no mistake against MacKenzie.

In 1891 Locock’s first daughter was born in Hawkhurst, Kent, although his location was still being given as London at the time. He was also still playing at the British Chess Club, winning this brilliant miniature against a strong opponent in their handicap tournament.

In 1892 the BCA ran another international tournament, this time in London, with the participation of the young Emanuel Lasker. Locock did well to score 6½/11.

Unfortunately, his draw against Lasker doesn’t appear to have been published, but we do have this game.

This would be his last tournament, although he continued playing in matches for several more years.

Soon afterwards Charles Dealtry Locock and his family moved out of London and back to his county of birth, settling in the village of Burwash, not all that far from Hawkhurst. Although it was 15 miles away, he wasn’t deterred from joining the Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club.

Hastings and St Leonards Observer 17 December 1892

It was in Burwash that his second daughter was born in 1894. Meanwhile, he was taking part in county and other matches, and playing consultation games with other leading players, a popular feature of Hastings chess at the time.

Here’s an exciting example in which he had a very strong partner.

One of the opposing team would late meet a tragic end, as described in Edward Winter’s excellent and thorough article here.

The same year a cable match took place between the British and Manhattan Chess Clubs, which was the predecessor of the official Anglo-American Cable Matches starting the following year. Locock was matched against Albert Beauregard Hodges: their game was drawn in 28 moves.

As a gentleman amateur he was just the sort of chap the selectors were looking for, and, although he was no longer an active tournament player he was selected for the Great Britain team for the first four matches. In 1896 he drew a fairly long ending against Edward Hynes, but in 1897 he was well beaten by Jackson Whipps Showalter.

Locock, playing Black, had misplayed the opening, and now Showalter replied to 14… Bxg5 with 15. Rxd7! Kxd7 16. Qg4+ Qe6 17. Qd4+ Kc8 18. Bxg5, having no problem converting his advantage.

This very short consultation game is (or at least was) perhaps his best known game, although it’s not clear whether the game lasted 9 or 18 moves. Unsurprisingly, it involves a queen sacrifice.

This position, from an 1897 match between North London and Hastings & St Leonards, is another demonstration of how Locock’s predilection for sacrifices could end up looking foolish.

He was Black here against Joseph William Hunt.

Locock being Locock, he couldn’t resist the Greek Gift sacrifice here. 11… Bxh2? 12. Kxh2 Ng4+. Here, Hunt played 13. Kg3?, which was unclear, the game eventually resulting in a draw, but 13. Kg1! Qh4 14. Bf4! would have left Black with very little for the piece. These sacrifices usually don’t work if your opponent has a diagonal defence of this nature: there are one or two examples of this in Chess Heroes: Puzzles Book 1. Curiously, the notes in the Pall Mall Gazette (Gunsberg?) claim that 13. Kg1 ‘was obviously impossible owing to Qh4 by Black’. Obviously not, but newspaper annotations, without Stockfish to assist and probably written overnight, were very poor in those days.

In the 1898 Cable Match Locock drew with David Graham Baird, this time missing an early tactical opportunity.

15… Bf3! 16. gxf3 Qh3 was winning, but instead he played 15… g5 and after 16. f3 White was safe, the game eventually resulted in a draw after a long double rook ending.

Locock’s opponent in the 1899 Cable Match was Sidney Paine Johnston.

Here’s the game.

Locock missed a win: 28. Qxe6+ Kh8 29. Rd8!, while Johnston in turn missed 29… Qh6!

There was quite a lot of comment in the press about Locock’s miss. Here’s the Morning Post (Antony Guest):

Morning Post 13 March 1899

Stung by this criticism, he decided it was time to give up competitive over-the-board chess. He kept his word, too. In 1901 it was announced that he’d compete in the Kent Congress, but he changed his mind. This was indeed the end of that part of his chess career.

 

Many years later he recalled:

Charles Dealtry Locock (27-ix-1872 13-v-1946)

What, then, should we make of Charles Dealtry Locock (pictured above) as a chess player? He was clearly a very creative and imaginative tactician, who, at his best, was of master standard for his day (EdoChess rates him as 2346 in 1892), but his constant quest for brilliancy led him to play the occasional silly move, and he sometimes missed tactical opportunities, particularly if they involved more unusual ideas. He also seemed to find endings rather boring. But perhaps, judging from the quote above, he wasn’t temperamentally suited to competitive chess, finding the pressure of the ticking clock too stressful. I can empathise. Fortunately for him, there were other ways to fuel his chess addiction.

You’ll find out more in my next two Minor Pieces.

Sources and Acknowledgements

Many thanks, first of all, to Brian Denman for kindly sending me his extensive file of Locock games.

Locock’s memoirs, quoted in several places above, and written with a combination of arrogance, false modesty and facetiousness, were published in the January 1933 issue of the British Chess Magazine.

Other sources:

ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk/British Newspaper Library
Wikipedia
BritBase (John Saunders)
Chess Notes (Edward Winter)
ChessBase 17/MegaBase 2023/Stockfish 16.1
chessgames.com (Locock here)
EdoChess (Rod Edwards: Locock here)
Correspondence Chess in Britain and Ireland 1824-1987 and British Chess Literature to 1914, both written by Tim Harding and published by McFarland & Company Inc.

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R. P. Michell – A Master of British Chess

I have a parochial interest in any book on Reginald Pryce Michell because he ended his playing career as a member of Kingston Chess Club of which I have the privilege to be President. His main career was in the first third of the twentieth century.  Other notable contemporary club members from the 1930s include the legendary Pakistani player Mir Sultan Khan, the chess author Edward Guthlac Sergeant and Joseph Henry Blake against whom we show some Michell games below.

Updated and Expanded Edition

This new book from Carsten Hansen is a welcome addition to the coverage of an important player who represented England. It is an update and expansion of the book originally published in 1947 by Pitman, London and compiled by Julius du Mont, the former editor of British Chess Magazine.

Julius du Mont, Editor of British Chess Magazine from 1940 to 1949
Julius du Mont, Editor of British Chess Magazine from 1940 to 1949

The original book has long been out of print so the new book allows players to familiarise themselves with an almost-forgotten former luminary of English chess.

R.P. Michell: A Master of British Chess by J. du Mont, Pitman, 1947
R.P. Michell: A Master of British Chess by J. du Mont, Pitman, 1947

Reginald Pryce Michell

I share some background on R. P. Michell from my article on the history of Kingston Chess Club.

Reginald Pryce Michell, British Chess Magazine, Volume XLV1, April, 1926, photographer: Theo J. Gidden, Southport
Reginald Pryce Michell, British Chess Magazine, Volume XLV1, April, 1926, photographer: Theo J. Gidden, Southport

Michell (1873-1938) was the British amateur chess champion in 1902 and played for Great Britain in the inaugural 1927 Olympiad in London and the 1933 Olympiad in Folkestone. He played in eight England v USA cable matches between 1901 and 1911. He participated in the Hastings Premier over 20 years, defeating both Sultan Khan and Vera Menchik in 1932/33. He finished second, third and fourth in the British championship (officially constituted in 1904), beating the multiple champion H.E. Atkins on several occasions. Modern estimates have placed him at the level of a strong international master.

Michell’s track record is all the more remarkable because he worked in a senior position at the Admiralty throughout his career which left him little time to study chess theory or enter competitions. He had a “wide knowledge of English and French literature, and a book of essays in either language was his standby for any unoccupied moment.” He died aged 65 which was the official retirement age at that time.

Michell excelled in the middle game and could hold his own in the endgame as attested by his draws against endgame maestros Capablanca and Rubinstein. In the only article he ever wrote about chess, he singled out books on the endgame as the most useful for practical purposes.

Portrait of R.P. Michell
Portrait of R.P. Michell

E.G. Sergeant wrote of him: “Michell’s courtesy as a chess opponent was proverbial, and on the rare occasions when he lost he always took as much interest in playing the game over afterwards as when he had won, and never made excuses for losing. Of all my opponents, surely he was the most imperturbable. Onlookers might chatter, whisper, fall off chairs, make a noise of any kind, and it seemed not to disturb him; even when short of time, he just sat with his hands between his knees, thinking, thinking.”

Michell’s wife Edith (maiden name Edith Mary Ann Tapsell) was British women’s champion in 1931 (jointly), 1932 and 1935, and played alongside him for Kingston & Thames Valley chess club.

Edith Mary Ann Michell (née Tapsell)
Edith Mary Ann Michell (née Tapsell)

A Master of British Chess – what’s new?

The original book covered 36 games; the new book has been expanded considerably to 67 games. Moreover, the additional games are against some of the most notable players of the era including several world champions. Chess historians should be grateful for the revival of the original game selection, which du Mont described as “characteristic games”, by the addition of another 31 “notable games”.

Self-published books are a labour of love because the subject lacks the mileage to justify the attention of a conventional publisher. The author lacks the quality assurance tasks typically carried out by a publisher such as proofreading and fact-checking. This is apparent in the first part of the book which reproduces the text from the original,  presumably using a scanner which hiccoughed over some obscure passages. The spelling has been converted to American which grates for a book on a quintessentially English player.

A frustrating omission in the new book is a list of games to navigate the collection; the original book contained a list showing game numbers, players, event locations and dates. In mitigation, the new book does have a useful index of openings and ECO codes as well as an index of opponents.  Hansen claims that the first book had 37 games whereas it had 36. Perhaps we can take comfort that later Amazon printings will correct these infelicities.

The new book has some significant improvements over the original. As one might expect, the moves are now in algebraic rather than the descriptive format with which most players under 50 are now unfamiliar. In the text, whilst d-pawn is the modern equivalent of the queen’s pawn, I still hanker after naming the pawn according to the name of the file; it would be a comforting continuity with descriptive notation.  The openings are given their modern names with ECO classifications. Casual readers will appreciate the increased number of diagrams accompanying each game. For example, for the game Blake v Michell, Caterham 1926, the original book only had one diagram compared to a generous five for the new book. Many of the original games did not appear in any commercial database. No doubt this situation will be remedied in short order.

The most frequent opponents listed in the revised book include his strong English contemporaries: Sir George Thomas, William Winter and Fred Yates with four games apiece. Hansen added notable opponents who should have been included in the first book on account of their elevated status in the chess world including five world champions: Alekhine, Botvinnik, Capablanca (two games), Euwe, Menchik (woman world champion) as well as Maroczy, Marshall, Rubinstein and Sultan Khan who were posthumously recognised as grandmasters.

The Edited First Part

The first part of the book carries the concise game summaries of the original which were proofread by the precocious Leonard Barden whilst still at Whitgift School who lived a short cycle ride from du Mont in Thornton Heath. The book came out a year later in 1947 when Barden started his National Service.

The editor of Chess Magazine, Baruch Wood, was scathing in his book review:

“Britain is far from the top of the chess tree and there must be a hundred British players with better justification for the publication of a book of their games than Michell. Mr du Mont’s graceful pen has made the most of his subject. The price of the book (10/6 for 108pp, 36 games) is so extraordinarily high that one feels some appeal is being made to sentiment.”

No doubt the fact that du Mont was the editor of a rival magazine may have diluted Wood’s objectivity. England did not have a surfeit of players and Michell would have been in the first rank.

Hansen has added his comments as italicised notes in the text in the contemporary rather dry style redolent of engine and database analysis. Inevitably, he has identified some improvements and errors which were not noticed in the original. These include not only outright blunders but also the missed opportunities. The logic of this approach is harsh and sits somewhat uncomfortably with the convention that the chess public is more forgiving of a failure to play the best move than of making a blunder. Treating both these types of inaccuracy symmetrically makes the world feel less tolerant.

Misattribution

The most significant discovery by Hansen is that one of the games (game 27) had been misattributed regarding who played White. du Mont had Michell defeating Max Euwe (World Champion 1935-1937) at Hastings 1931 whereas Michell had lost.

Hansen surmises that the game intended for the collection was the game they played in the following year’s Hastings tournament when Michell had Euwe on the ropes but the game ended in a draw. We don’t know exactly how this error occurred but confusion sometimes arises when quoting games at Hastings. This famous long-running annual tournament traditionally takes place in the period between Christmas and the New Year and is described according to the year it starts and the year it ends. Michell lost the game played in 1930/31 but drew the game they played in 1931/32.

Biography Untouched

Carsten Hansen is a chess analyst rather than a professional biographer so it is perhaps wise that he has not attempted to update the biographical sketch provided by du Mont. When the chess analyst Daniel King wrote a book on Sultan Khan, he got into hot water regarding his contested account of the life of the grandmaster.

Modern Analysis Compared

We may compare annotations between the original and the revised version of the book regarding the above-mentioned game. Here we have (courtesy of CH) an excerpt of the new book on the game Blake v Michell, Caterham, 1926. Blake, although half a generation older than Michell, was described by du Mont as “one of the brilliant band of British amateurs of which R. P. Michell was one.”

Excerpt of Game 22
Excerpt of Game 22

and

Excerpt of Game 22
Excerpt of Game 22

and

Excerpt of Game 22
Excerpt of Game 22

and finally

Excerpt of Game 22
Excerpt of Game 22

We may briefly examine the new analysis. The original text by du Mont / Barden criticises Blake’s choice of opening: “This method of development in the Queen’s Pawn game has its disadvantages in that the dark squares on White’s queenside become temporarily weak, and White will have to spend some time on remedying this defect (e.g., 6.a3). That is why the Colle system has come into favour, the basic idea of which is the quiet development of all the white forces with pawns at c3, d4, and e3, starting an attack at the proper time with the move characteristic of the system: e3-e4.”

Hansen gives short shrift to this perspective:

“There is nothing wrong with the text move; in fact, it is a popular set-up for White, played by countless strong grandmasters.”  

This blunt contradiction is based upon a century of games played thereafter. However, the original comment may have seemed plausible in the era in which Colle popularised the system and it had yet to be fully proven.

After black’s 18th move (diagram above), the original annotation prefers an alternative to the move played 19. Bxc4: “Undoubtedly, White should play 19. bxc4. His game will now deteriorate due to this weak centre and the backward d-pawn.”

Hansen is again blunt:

“Indeed, the text move is a blunder, whereas after 19. bxc4, White would have had the upper hand.”

According to Deep Hiarcs (running for one minute), the difference in evaluation between 19. bxc4 and 19. Bxc4 is the difference between +0.2 and -0.3. So at worst, this “blunder” puts Blake a third of a pawn behind instead of being a fifth of a pawn ahead.  Whilst masters thrive on small measures, it seems an exaggeration to describe capture by the bishop as a blunder. The original narrative merely says that the pawn capture would have been preferable without overstating the difference. Perhaps there is a tendency when aided by an engine to lose sight of the natural uncertainties felt by chess players when ruminating on which piece to recapture with.

Drama at Hastings 1934-35

The foreword on the original book noted that the most dramatic moment of Michell’s career occurred at the annual Hastings Premier 1934-35. He was pitted in the last round against Sir George Thomas, who was then half a point ahead of Dr Euwe, having beaten Capablanca and Botvinnik. Some observers felt that the decent and patriotic course of action was to give Sir George an easy game.

As one later commentator remarked, “In almost any other country, at any other time, the result would have been foreordained: a friendly draw and Thomas finishes no worse than a tie for first. Indeed, many players had to be rooting for the universally beloved Thomas to win and come in sole first.” [1]

There had not been a home winner since Henry Ernest Atkins in 1921, the first year the annual tournament was held. Thomas and Michell were England teammates. However, Thomas slipped up and Michell pressed home his advantage. Thomas lost the game but tied for first place with Euwe and Flohr. Curiously, the original book did not include this crucial game. Hansen includes the game and praises Michell for his principled stance: “But there was a happy ending; Max Euwe, in a better position against tail-ender Norman, made a sporting gesture of his own by offering a draw unnecessarily and settling for a first-place tie with Thomas and Flohr.” [1]

The Second Part

Hansen annotates the games in the new second part of the book in a readable style and does not let Stockfish intrude too much. He even offers his thoughts on some moves rather than taking the engine recommendations. The prose is functional: the game introductions lack the charm of the original game summaries. Whilst sometimes providing some background information on the opponent, there is little attempt in the header to identify the key points from each game.

Hansen is consistent with the narrative style in the first part by avoiding long algebraic variations. Even if his move criticisms are sometimes anachronistic, he has been considerate in generally referring to older games when citing continuations. It must have been tempting to have referred to games played in the database era.

The original book held to the hagiographic compiler’s conceit of not showing any losses save for the aforementioned misattribution. The reader would perhaps have gained more of an understanding of the subject’s character if presented with some games in which he struggled or indeed blundered. For example, Michell was crushed in 21 moves by Atkins at Blackpool in 1937 when he was still in his prime, even if he died a year later.

Hansen does not resist presenting Michell’s loss to the great Capablanca at Hastings in the Victory Congress 1919. It was clear even then that Capablanca would be one of the next holders of the World Championship. The game’s introductory text is misleading: “You don’t often get chances to play the best players in the world, let alone take points from them, even if it is ‘just’ a draw.” The implication is that this game (No. 41) is drawn whereas it is a win for Capablanca.  In total the book contains two losses, 14 draws and 51 wins for Michell.

In the majority of the games in the second part, Hansen focuses on blunders by Michell or his opponent.  There is no doubt that the top players from a century ago were not as strong as the top players of today but it seems churlish to show so many games with blunders. Comparatively few moves have been awarded an exclamation mark. Perhaps the book should have been shorter with higher-quality games.   However, on closer inspection, the “blunders” are treated in the modern sense as discussed above.  They are not the traditional blunders, bad moves losing the game, that would have been described by a contemporary annotator. Rather, they are blunders in which the game evaluation has switched by a certain margin.

Michell, a follower of Nimzovich, focused on positional advantages; tactical skirmishes and sacrifices were few and far between. A slight exception to this style was found in the game Blake v Michell, Hastings, 29 December 1923:

Conclusion

R. P. Michell should be an inspiration to amateur players with a full-time career. He made a mark in the chess world using solid play, eschewing theoretical or sharp lines. He held his own against the strongest players in the world. Carsten Hansen has brought welcome attention to this forgotten English master. The new book nearly doubles the number of games covered and introduces modern engine analysis. The reader will find many examples of successful middle-game strategies. Above all, we learn that chess is a struggle: one should keep trying to improve the position and make things difficult for the opponent. I recommend this book, especially to club players looking for new chess ideas.

John Foley, Kingston-upon-Thames, 27th May 2024

John Foley with the Alexander Cup
John Foley with the Alexander Cup won by Kingston in 2021/22 and 2022/23

Kingston won the Alexander Cup, the Surrey team knockout tournament, in 1931/32 with Michell.

Book Details :

  • Hardcover : 318 pages
  • Publisher:  CarstenChess (16 Mar. 2024)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10:8793812884
  • ISBN-13:978-8793812888
  • Product Dimensions: 15.24 x 1.83 x 22.86 cm
FM Carsten Hansen
FM Carsten Hansen

“Carsten Hansen, a Danish FIDE Master at Chess, was born in 1971. At age 14, he became the youngest master player at chess in Denmark at the time. In 1995, Carsten was contacted by Peter Heine Nielsen to co-author a chess book on the “Sicilian Accelerated Dragon”. Peter had been offered a contract but felt that he wouldn’t be able to write the book on his own and since Hansen had played the opening his entire life, it was a natural fit. The book was released in 1998 to high acclaim and near universal positive reviews. From 1999 to 2013, Hansen was a columnist for the very popular website, ChessCafe.com. He has been a contributor to Skakbladet, Chess Life, and New In Chess”. Hansen is based in New Jersey, and still enjoys playing and writing about chess. He has now authored over 40 chess books. He has made a speciality of reviving old books.

Official web site of Carsten Chess

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
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

[1] According to David Moody’s account in ChessGames.

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