Yorkshire Chess History

Johann Jacob Löwenthal was born to Jewish parents on 15th July 1810 at Pest in Hungary, before it joined with Buda on the other side of the river Danube to form Budapest. He was destined to become an important figure on the English chess scene in the second half of the 19th century. His arrival in England was an unexpected consequence of his taking a new job.

The Kossuth Regime in Hungary

Following revolution in France, Lajos Kossuth stirred up nationalism in Hungary in 1848, in an attempt to establish a degree of independence from Austria. The result was a Hungarian government with Lajos Batthyány as prime minister, and Kossuth Finance Minister. Because Kossuth was the primary mover in this surge of Hungarian/Magyar nationalism, the new regime was dubbed the “Kossuth regime”.

Johann Jacob Löwenthal got a job working for the new government, which might have been the start of a promising career, but that was not to be. The Austrian Emperor Ferdinand, who had made concessions to the Kossuth regime, abdicated in favour of Franz Joseph, who rescinded Ferdinand’s concessions, and outlawed Kossuth and his originally-legitimate regime. In time, with assistance from Russia, Austria prevailed by military force, and Kossuth fled from Hungary to find popularity and acclaim on the after-dinner-speech circuit in the world outside Hungary. Others in his government similarly had to flee. His private secretary, Lichtenstein fled first to Königsberg, but settled in Edinburgh, where he became prominent in the city’s musical life.

Life in England

Löwenthal went initially to America, where he played Morphy. Then in 1851 he travelled to England to play in the Staunton’s London Tournament of 1851. He stayed in England, where he resided for the rest of his life. He supported himself as a chess professional, playing and writing, until his health gave out.

In 1851-52 Löwenthal toured England, playing chess against members of the local clubs. This included a tour of Yorkshire clubs.

At the first meeting of the (later “British”) Chess Association, being the Northern and Midland Chess Association under a new guise, in 1857, at Manchester, Löwenthal won the eight-player knock-out, beating Horwitz in round one, Adolf Anderssen in round 2 (the crunch encounter), and Boden in the final. The other competitors were Pindar, Harrwitz, Soul and Brien.

This success was repeated at the 1858 meeting in Birmingham, where he won 60 guineas (£63) by beating J. S. Kipping in round one (+2, =0, -0), Howard Staunton in round 2 (+2,=0,-0), Rev. John Owen in round 3 (+2, =1, -0), and then beating Falkbeer (+3, =4, -1) in the final, which was played in London.

He didn’t attend the Chess Association meeting in Cambridge.

During a visit to Bristol Chess club in 1860, he suggested that Bristol be the venue for the next Chess Association meeting, in 1862, and Löwenthal became “manager and foreign correspondent” of the exercise, and edited the book of the congress, published in 1864.

He had published Morphy’s Games of Chess in 1860, but was more prominent as the editor of chess magazines and columns in more-general periodicals, than as a writer of books. He edited The Chess Player's Magazine from 1863 to 1867, wherein his umlaut seems not to have been printed. He was editor of important chess columns in The Illustrated News and The Era.

In 1866 he applied to become a British citizen, apparently giving his age as 60, suggesting he was born about four years earlier than is generally thought.

Löwenthal is elusive in censuses, even allowing for the various possible spellings. People with matching names are present, but none is the chess-player.

Less visibly he served as secretary to the St. George's Chess Club in London. After his death, this club instituted The Lowenthal Cup as its club championship trophy, in memory their former secretary.

In 1922 became the English Counties Championship Trophy, and was retrospectively engraved with the winners from 1908.

Death

He died, after a couple of years’ illness.

In the final years he’d been dependent on the charity of others. In an article in the Dundee Evening Telegraph of 13/07/1922, it was reported that in 1878 [sic] members of the St. George’s Chess Club and others started to fund the financial support of Lowenthal who, however, died before the appeal for donations closed, at which point the fund stood at £250, of which Lowenthal never received a penny of course.

The Manchester Evening News of 20/07/1876 reported, “Mr. Lowenthal, the celebrated chess player and writer on the game, died this morning at St. Leaonards-on-Sea, aged 66. Other papers followed with essentially the same report on 21/07/1876, saying he’d died on the morning previous to the report (i.e. 20/07/1876). The place of death was always said to have been St. Leonards-on-Sea. Probate records go further and say it was at Burlington House, St. Leonards-on-sea. At least one obituary claimed he died at an unspecified address on Gesney Road, St. Leonards-on-Sea. However, it is seemingly impossible to identify which property on Gesney Road was known as Burlington House, or on what other road Burlington House might have been situated. (A 6-page biographical article by Geoffrey Harber Diggle, which appeared in the British Chess Magazine of 1976, page 306, says the date of death was 21/07/1876, but that date is evidently wrong.)

The executors of his will were George Webb Medley and James Wilson Rimington Wilson, who appointed London solicitor Charles Mossop as their solicitor. Lowenthal’s place of residence at the time of his death was given as 11, Stratford Place, Camden Town in the routine notice to creditors placed in The Gazette. Probate records give the amount he left as “less than £450”. The amount involved was left to St George’s Chess Club for the benefit of British chess.

Thus, St. George’s Chess Club collected the above £250 intended for Lowenthal and also received going on for £450 from Lowenthal’s estate to be applied for the benefit of British chess, and it spent about £100 on the Lowenthal Cup. One writer has criticised the club for spending £100 of the £450 on the Lowenthal Cup, but it seems more appropriate to say the cost of the Lowenthal Cup came from the £250 relief fund.

He was buried in Hastings Cemetery, and a gravestone was erected by the St. George’s Chess Club of London. The gravestone was renovated by the British Chess Federation, and a ceremony held at the grave on 21/07/1926 marking the fiftieth anniversary of his death – a day late.

Created

07/07/2012

Census information is copyright of The National Archive, see UK Census Information

Last Updated

12/04/2025