Dr Timothy Harding's homepage

This section is my private website. You can read here about my academic publications, my chess books, and especially my new book, Correspondence Chess in Britain and Ireland, 1824-1987, published in February. This has been nominated for the English Chess Federation's Book of the Year award.

My current research pages include an index to articles that can be read here and another which raises queries about chess research I am currently engaged upon, or have recently completed, including work for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and my next book which has just been accepted for publication in 2012 by McFarland.

These pages will be integrated later with a new major section of this website, The Chess History Research Zone.

I have been writing a monthly column, The Kibitzer at The Chess Cafe website since the summer of 1996. An index table links to the article archive. I also write occasional articles on correspondence chess for the Spanish magazine Jaque.

My doctoral thesis on correspondence chess in Britain & Ireland, 1824-1914, was accepted in 2009.

On 10 July 2009 I was formally conferred with the PhD degree in History by Dr Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland), the Chancellor of the University of Dublin.

The picture on the right, taken that day, shows me in the front square of Trinity College Dublin, in front of the statue of George Salmon, the distinguished Irish Mathematician and theologian of the nineteenth century, and provost of TCD.

I have just completed five year of part-time undergraduate history teaching for the university.

Tim Harding, in doctoral robes, with the statue of Salmon at TCD. He was an opponent of both Morphy (1858) and Steinitz (1881) and once beat Harrwitz playing level.
I am also doing further research into the history of chess and other indoor games, and have started an entirely separate research and writing project about Burma. A few years ago I edited my late father's war memoir, Copper Wire, and there are some pages about it on this website.

I have been playing chess both OTB and by correspondence since the 1960s and have written about chess for over 30 years. I played on board 6 for Ireland in the Final of the 15th CC Olympiad and captained the team.

I am currently playing top board for Dublin University and the Irish league (Armstrong Cup) competition. I am too busy teaching and writing to play much CC at present but I am about to begin play in the semi-final of the 2nd ICCF Veterans World Cup which officially starts on 1 JUne 2011.

I played on the Irish team at the 1984 FIDE Olympiad in Thessaloniki, scoring 50%.

I am a Senior International Master of Correspondence Chess (awarded by ICCF in 2002). First place in the ICCF Delegates & Officials IM-A tournament helped me to earn that title

I am also the author of many chess books. Most are now out of print and many (on openings) are superseded.

NB: this website does not sell anything.
Since 1976 I have been living in Dublin, Ireland, where I was on the editorial staff of The Sunday Press up to May 1995, when it ceased publication. I founded Chess Mail Ltd. in 1996 and the magazine was published in nine volumes (82 numbers) ending in January 2006. We have now decided to retire from sales and production and to close down the business. I am married with two student daughters.

My best success as an OTB player was joint first with GM Bojan Kurajica at the 1973 Hammersmith Open in London ahead of many masters and GMs, but it was only 7 rounds and I didn't have to play Kurajica (we scored 6.5/7). We each dropped half a point against Jonathan Mestel.

I also won a good prize at the Le Havre 1980 international open and won several weekend Open events in England, Wales, and Ireland during the 1970s.

I edited an anthology of CC writings, The Write Move, and compiled the UltraCorr CD database series.

History of the Hardings (website with research by Steve Harding, England: no relation, so far as I know!)

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