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The Chess
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Editor: Dr Tim |
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The Chess
History |
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Editor: Dr Tim |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
30 April 2011
This quite lengthy article is a summary of Appendix I in my book Correspondence Chess in Britain and Ireland 1824-1987, where full details and references may be found. My purpose, in making the information below more widely available, is that databases can be corrected so that eventually the mistakes will cease to circulate.
Carlo Pagni, following his countryman Bassi, was the pioneer of research into correspondence chess matches between clubs in the nineteenth century. Most of his findings were collected in Scacchi Senza Quartiere: incontri per corrispondenza tra circoli nel sec. XIX (Rome 20 04; ISBN 88-88756-18-3 ). Some additional material appeared subsequently in his self-published Correspondence Chess Matches Between Clubs 1823-1899, Volume 4 (Venice 2006). All the games from the first three volumes of that series are in the Italian book
During the course of my doctoral researches, I found more than 30 such matches that do not feature in his books, not all of which are commented upon below. I may be able to compile a full list later.
A few games listed in Pagni’s books should probably not be there. This is because either certain matches were not in fact played by correspondence, or else no reliable primary source has been found to verify them. In addition, I found scores for several games that Pagni knew about but was unable to include in his publications.
Several corrections are trivial; others more serious. Pagni (2006) also includes three appendices concerning games he could not find, but knows or suspects were played. The first, ‘Games certainly played: result known’; these are mostly non-U.K. games but a few have been found. Some answers have also been found for his second appendix, ‘Games certainly played: result unknown’. As to his third appendix, ‘Hypothetical second games’, in two cases from U.K. matches, a second game has indeed been found.
It should be noted that Pagni has researched correspondence chess matches between clubs, or clubs and individuals throughout the world in the nineteenth century. This article comments mostly on U.K. matches, but a few exceptions have been made in the case of early matches. In particular I checked what he said about Dutch matches with the standard history of CC in Netherlands, by Diepstraten, and found that in several cases the Dutch writer was much more reliable than Pagni. I may post a full list of my Dutch corrections later, but there is a note about his worst mistake at the end of this article.
1825, Liverpool v. Leeds. This game was first published in The Kaleidoscope. See my article of 2009 in Correspondence Chess (the BCCA magazine) and my book.
1825, Leeds v Hull. A recent discovery, not in Pagni: only the first few moves are known (see my book) and the match may never have been completed.
1825-6, Liverpool v. Manchester. The last few moves in each game are incorrectly transcribed from the Manchester Guardian in Pagni. Again, see my article in Correspondence Chess and my book for the correct versions.
1835?, 1838, New York v. Washington. This is discussed briefly in my book, thanks to information sent to me by John Hilbert. Pagni followed Fiske in assigning an 1835 date but 1838 seems more probable.
1837-8 , Nottingham v. Cambridge . This match began in 1837 not 1838. In Pagni’s game 30 (where Nottingham moved first), White’s move 28 was Bb3, and not 28 Bg6 as given by Max Lange and Pagni.
1838-9 & 1839-40, Leeds v. Liverpool. Two distinct two-game matches.
1839-40, Bristol Chess Club v. Howard Staunton. These games are often dated 1841 or even later, but they began in 1839 and both were published during 1840.
1843,Game in Leeds: This appears in Walker’s Chess Studies, which put correspondence and consultation games in the same section without distinction. It was almost certainly a consultation game between two groups of Leeds club members.
1843, ‘Liverpool v. London’? This game reported in the French chess magazine Le Palamède (1844) was probably between individuals rather than clubs — and possibly over-the-board. It has yet to be traced in any English publication.
1844, Rochester v. Maidstone. Two games from this match were discovered by Dr Adrian Harvey, and are reprinted in my book. The result of a third game, said to have been started, is unknown. It was probably never published.
1844, Baltimore v. Washington telegraph games. Two games are known; this is discussed at some length in my book.
1845, telegraph games ‘Portsmouth v. London’. Pagni and other sources describe these as inter-club matches, saying that Staunton and Kennedy ‘assisted the Portsmouth committee’. There was no Portsmouth committee, although one local chess-player (Hoffmeister) was present.
1846, Trinidad matches. See the article on this website.
1848, London Chess Club v. Amsterdam Philidor Club. A succession of writers have been misled by Van der Linde and some mis-statements in a few English publications into believing this was the first game of a three game match. The games played in 1850-1 constituted a separate match, and Diepstraten’s history of Dutch correspondence chess agrees.
1848-50, Wisbech v. Cambridge. Two games were played consecutively. It is unclear whether these formed one match or two.
1849-50, Penzance v. Reading. There is a serious error in Pagni who had the colours reversed for both games. The match was won 2-0 by Reading, not by Penzance.
1851, Guildford v. Penzance. Pagni’s 2006 booklet corrects his 2004 book, where he was misled by Lange. The second game was probably never published. A common mis-spelling is ‘Guilford’.
1853, Trinity College Cambridge v. Newcastle. This match, apparently consisting of only one game, may possibly have started late in 1852 but certainly was not played in 1849.
1855, Coventry v. Northampton. This game included in Pagni (2004) was not by correspondence. It was the last of three over-the-board consultation games begun at the Leamington congress and, being incomplete, concluded afterwards in Northampton.
1855-7, Kidderminster v. Nottingham. This match (apparently for the first club to score two wins) is more complicated than the previous case. The first game was played at Leamington and ended in a dispute, discussed in my book. A second game, unfinished there, was continued by correspondence; it ended in a draw and appears not to have been preserved. Kidderminster won the third game and Nottingham won the match by taking the fourth game.
1858, Cambridge University v. Hull. Pagni (following Lange) published a fragment and incorrectly dated it 1849. The match was actually in 1858 and the games were published by Staunton in the Illustrated London News on 29 Jan. 1859.
1858, Cambridge University v. Stourbridge. Illustrated London News , 24 Apr. 1858, has the game Pagni did not find.
1859-60, Berwick-on-Tweed v. Newcastle. The match began in Nov. 1859. Sources are Chess Player’s Chronicle n.s. ii (1860), p. 188, & Norfolk News, 18 Apr. and 30 June 1860. One was reprinted in the Newcastle Courant, 17 May 1878.
1859-60, Bristol Athenaeum v. Cardiff. Pagni’s statement that this was ‘the first correspondence chess match in Wales’ ignores the fact that Bristol is in England, and my book shows that at least one earlier correspondence game began in Wales. There is an extended discussion in my book about various games involving Bristol.Pagni apparently did not see Burt’s 1883 history of that club.
1860, Birmingham & Edgbaston Chess Club v. Windermere College. It is difficult to know whether to call this one match or two. George Gossip (who was at Windermere) was about 18 at the start. Windermere won the first game but then a return game was ‘played by correspondence between the secretaries of the Birmingham chess club and Windermere College chess club to further explore the line they tried the previous year’. Birmingham won that.
1860-2, Berwick-on-Tweed v. Edinburgh. The match was apparently for the first club to win two games. The first two games began in Nov. 1860, with a summer adjournment in 1861. Lange (1872) has the third game complete (not saying where he found it) but only the early moves and results of the first two. The Edinburgh Club’s match book does not include the scores. The Berwick Warder (whose editor was involved in the earlier Newcastle match) did publish the game they won, but not the finish of the game they lost (presumably because of the adverse result). Lange said it ended in March 1862. The third game presumably began when the first game ended.
1861/2, Bristol v. Liverpool. Burt himself was not infallible and here he misled Pagni. Burt’s game 47 was neither played by telegraph nor was it in 1862. The Norfolk News, 28 Sept. 1861, published it as a Bristol-Liverpool consultation game over-the-board at the 1861 British Chess Association’s Bristol meeting.
1862,Cardiff v. Worcester. Pagni (2004), p. 112, has two fragments taken from an American secondary source. No primary source has been traced.
1862-4, Edinburgh v. Dundee. This followed the Berwick match. Two games were played simultaneously, ending 1-1. After a break, Dundee won the playoff. The game scores in the Edinburgh club papers correct a mistake Fraser made in his transcription of Edinburgh’s win, which misled Staunton. See pages 167-8 in my book for the full story.
1864, Bristol v Cardiff. Two games were included in Pagni (2006). One is correct but Burt says his game 48 (1-0, 43, won by Bristol) was played over the board at the Bristol Club.
1866, London-Bristol. Burt’s game 49 (headlined by Pagni’s 2006 booklet as ‘An unfinished of the postal play’) was actually played by telegraph between the Bristol club and the St George’s Club in London.
1866/7, Bristol v. Bath . Pagni’s 2004 book includes this as a correspondencegame but Burt (game 51 in his book) says it was played at Bath in 1867.
1868, Grahamstown v. Uitenage. Perhaps the earliest correspondence match in South Africa. Pagni dated it 1869-70, but it was published by Staunton in January 1869.
1870, St James’s Club of London v. The City & County of Dublin Chess Club. Pagni, following a German source, wrongly stated that the St. James’s Club was in Bristol.
1870-1, Bristol Athenaeum v. Birmingham. Pagni dates one game to 1870-2 and the other to 1872-3 but they were both published in 1871.
1876-7, Gravesend v. Bedford Institute. The start of two games was published in the Gravesend and Dartford Reporter on 1 and 22 Apr. 1876 and then no more was seen. The Westminster Papers later published one of the games. Gravesend’s opponent was not the city of Bedford, but the Bedford Institute in the east end of London.
1877, Cambridge University v. Birmingham. Pagni includes a two-game match Cambridge v. Birmingham, for which he cites no source, and says the year was 1860. The game won by Birmingham has not yet been traced to a primary source, but was possibly the companion to the other, which was played in 1877.
1877-8, New Basford Club (Nottingham) v. Hull Church Institute . This match was a 1-1 draw. Both games were published in the Westminster Papers, but Pagni overlooked one and sought the ‘hypothetical other’.
1879-80, Preston v. Chichester. In his 2006 first appendix, p. 76, Pagni was aware that Chichester won one game and the other was drawn, but he found no moves. They are in the Preston Guardian on 2 and 9 June 1880.
1880, Brighton v. Chichester (telephone games). Pagni (2004) had only the second of these.
1880, Newcastle v. Hull? Pagni (2006, p. 190) has the opening of a game attributed by Cook’s 1910 opening manual to a match between these cities. It is plausible but no primary source has been found yet; it could possibly have been an over-the-board game.
1882-3, Cork v Dublin. This match is not in Pagni’s books. The games appear in the chess column of Our School Times, available on this website.
1883, ‘Bridgewater v. Dorrington’. The first nine moves are included in Pagni (2004) but actually this was a game between individuals of those surnames.
1887, North London Chess Club v. Manchester. The game won by London was found in The Bohemian (1887, issue 2), but not the other.
1887, Londonderry v. Aberdeenshire. Strictly speaking this was a match between the club secretaries (not named).
1891, Cardiff v. Bristol? Pagni (2006), p. 65, has a twelve-move game from Steinitz’s International Chess Magazine, 1891. A British primary source is so far lacking. Can anyone help?
1891-2, Dublin (Morphy’s Divan) v. Edinburgh. The games of this match were published in the Dublin Evening Mail on 17 & 24 Mar. 1892. The one where Edinburgh played White is incorrectly dated by Pagni.
1894-5, ‘Copenhagen v. London’? This was really played between Denmark and England, but by individuals: Vilhelms Nielsen and the Kent player C. F. Delcomyn, who was a Scandinavian by birth .
1897, London v. Athens? A miniature game, given by Pagni (2006) without a source. Perhaps between unknown individuals? Quality is very low so, without a written source, databases should discard this.
1899, Netherlands. Pagni (2006) claimed to have found a game of uncertain date played by the chess historian Antonius van der Linde against the Staunton Chess Club of Groningen. Since Pagni cites the book by Diepstraten in that paragraph, it is incomprehensible how he failed to detect that this game, to be found in that book, was actually played by a chess club named in honour of Van der Linde, and not by the historian himself. The famous game against the Nielsens of Copenhagen (Pagni 2006, pp. 37-8), was indeed played by Van der Linde himself, but it was stretching a point to call it an inter-club contest.
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