Yorkshire Chess History

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1856: Huddersfield v Wakefield Match

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The 1856 annual general meeting of Huddersfield Chess Club was held on 29^th March 1856 at the Imperial Hotel, 45 New Street, Huddersfield. The meeting was of note partly because of a match between Huddersfield and Wakefield as part of the proceedings, and partly because it was there that action was initiated to resurrect the Yorkshire Chess Association which had since evolved into the Northern and Midland Counties Chess Association.

The Huddersfield Chronicle of Saturday 5^th April 1856 carried a full report. An abridged version of the report was carried by the Chess Player’s Chronicle, 1856, page 155, which concentrated on the match without referring to the idea of rekindling a Yorkshire Chess Association.

Club members present included the following:

Dr William Scott	President
David Marsden	Vice-President
John Watkinson	Hon. Sec.
E Barlow
A Bennett
George Brook, junior
Duncan Anderson Cooper
John Marsden
Overbury
GW Rhodes
John Russell Robinson
Henry Shaw, junior
Edward Wyndham Tarn
George Henry Taylor	(who later moved to the Durham area)
William Henry Bedford Tomlinson
M Webb

The main feature of interest was a match between a Huddersfield team and a visiting team from Wakefield, over four board, two games (inclusive of draws) being played on each board.

Match results were as follows:

Huddersfield	g1	g2	Wakefield
John Watkinson	1‑0,	½‑½	Edward Shepherd
David Marsden	½‑½,	½‑½	William Ledgar Robinson
Edward Wyndham Tarn	1‑0,	0‑1	William Wilks Hunter
George Henry Taylor	½‑½,	1‑0	Charles Smith Bennett
	5	3

Presumably each player played one game as White and one as Black, but colours were not shown in the report, though we know Shepherd was White in the second game on board one, as we have the score of the game.

Huddersfield thus won with 3 wins to 1, and 4 draws. At this point in time it was not customary to express this in the modern, less-detailed form of 5-3.

Created

25/04/2012

Last Updated

25/04/2012