Derek Raymond Markham was born in 1947, in Leeds. He married Sandra N Clegg in 1949, in Leeds, and the couple went on to have two children, Julia Markham who was born in1972, in Leeds, and Paul Christian Markham who was born in 1975, in Bradford. He passed away peacefully in late April 2026, at the Glen Nursing Home Shipley, aged 78 years. A requiem mass, which friends were invited to attend, took place at St Aidan's Roman Catholic church, Baildon Road, Baildon, BD17 6AQ on Thursday 7th May 2026 prior to private committal. Donations in Derek's memory were invited to be made to Parkinson's UK.

He leaves not only wife Sandra and their daughter and son, Julia and Paul, but also daughter-in-law Alison. He was also a grandfather.

The following chess-related detail is derived from old Yorkshire Chess Association publications of the day.

Derek was conspicuous by his absence from a Yorkshire county first team which played on 05/07/1971 and from all earlier Woodhouse Cup and county matches.

He pops up in the Woodhouse Cup playing on board 3 for Leeds on 09/10/1971. His first appearance in a Yorkshire county team was on 23/10/1971 in the then-traditional split venue 1st team match with Lancashire over 40 boards, 20 in Leeds and 20 in Manchester. It was a narrow victory for Yorkshire by the aggregate score of 20½-19½.

Prior to 1981, he had been captain of the Leeds Woodhouse Cup team.

In 1981, Derek became Yorkshire County first team captain, taking over from Dave Milton. Derek lived at the time in Baildon, Shipley. Bob McGinnis took over from Derek as Leeds Woodhouse captain. Derek was still county captain in 1983-84, but for 1985-86 Gary Kenworthy was captain. Data on 1984-85 is not to hand. So, Derek would appear to have been Yorkshire 1st team captain for three or four years, the highlight being Yorkshire winning the Open County Championship of 1982 on 03/07/1982 at Leeds, as follows:

Col/Bd	Yorkshire	Grade	11-9	Lancashire	Grade
b1	J Hall	221	1-0	P Littlewood	230
w2	R Britton	216	½-½	N D Short	239J
b3	J C Hawksworth	211	½-½	J Horner	222
w4	J C Howell	212J	0-1	J E Littlewood	222
b5	A C L Dyson	205J	0-1	N Holloway	213
w6	P J Romilly	210	½-½	N W Ivell	210
b7	M J Haygarth	194	½-½	M J Conroy	202
w8	B A Jones	201	0-1	M J O’Hara	199
b9	P Botto		½-½	A A Smith	202
w10	N Littlewood	199	1-0	D Lees	198
b11	C C W Shephard	203	1-0	P Brooks	191
w12	J Burnett	192	0-1	R McMichael	203
b13	S C Brown	195J	1-0	H Hughes	181
w14	R D Westra	199	1-0	G Ellison	188
b15	J E Vickery	190	½-½	A C Cooper	195
w16	R van Kemenade	187	1-0	B Lund	188
b17	P D Rooney	186	½-½	A Beardsworth	189
w18	D Firth	187	½-½	B Dabulawicus	183
b19	G Senior	181	½-½	R Doney
w20	J G Cooper	174J	½-½	P Wheldon

The YCA Bulletin No. 213 said, “Much credit for this victory must go to the first team captain, Derek Markham, who worked very hard to assemble what was almost the strongest possible team.

Derek appears to have dropped out of chess at some stage from 1990s, moving on, it has been suggested, to focussing on playing bridge.

Steve Mann

18/05/2026