Chess history is an increasingly popular subject, and Bernie Hare, who has recently returned to competitive chess-playing, has turned his attention to creating a Leeds Chess Club History website.

This is “work in progress”, and on it Bernie invites people to contribute to it.

The old Leeds Chess Club (becoming superseded by what was originally “Leeds CCC”) is generally regarded as having been formed in 1834, but things are never that simple, as often an informally organised group of chess-players existed, and conducted inter-town chess “matches” (by correspondence), and only in time formally constituted a “chess club”. Thus we find Leeds beating Liverpool in 1824-25, ten years before 1834.

So, did the group of Leeds players who beat counterparts from Liverpool constitute an earlier “Leeds Chess Club” or not? Was the 1834 club simply a formalisation of the earlier club, and hence in a sense the same club?

Bernie’s developing site can be found at https://leedschessclub.wixsite.com/history.