London Junior Chess Championships

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David Shepherd
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London Junior Chess Championships

Post by David Shepherd » Tue Dec 20, 2011 12:22 am

Does anyone know the history of the London Junior Championships. Am I correct in saying that this will be the first year since the championship started that it is possible that the top London boy will not get a London title or is the combining of the girls and boys title in to one champion just reverting to an earlier system?

Does anyone understand the logic for this whilst still retaining a seperate best boy and best girl title? Personally I find it sad that the seperate titles have gone, particularly given that it was a the London boys championship and I knew a number of players that played in the early years (who sadly are no longer with us). I suppose this is just progress.

Jon D'Souza-Eva

Re: London Junior Chess Championships

Post by Jon D'Souza-Eva » Tue Dec 20, 2011 10:50 am

John Saunders has got a picture of the competitors in the 1927 London Girls' Championship on his website:
http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/arch20a.htm

I hadn't realised that it started this early.

Gordon Cadden
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Re: London Junior Chess Championships

Post by Gordon Cadden » Tue Dec 20, 2011 11:56 am

Philip Stuart Milner-Barry won the first London Boy's Championship, in 1924. I see no reason why boys and girls cannot compete together in the London Junior Championship. The Polgar Sisters would not have made much progress in the chess world, if they competed only in competitions for girls.

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David Shepherd
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Re: London Junior Chess Championships

Post by David Shepherd » Tue Dec 20, 2011 2:27 pm

Jon that was a great link - the picture is quite sad in a way given the subsequent tragic deaths of at least three of the particpants. The way in which Agnes died is just one of the most tragic accidents I have ever heard of, so sad

From the Britbase article

"In 1931 Stevenson and his first wife Agnes (née) Lawson (? - 1935, herself a four-times British Ladies' Champion) lived in SW4 and played for the Lewisham St Mary's club, but the first Mrs Stevenson died in a tragic and bizarre accident in August 1935. She had been picked to play in the Women's World Championship in Warsaw and arrived in Posen (now known as Poznan) by plane from Berlin. Having completed the passport formalities, she was returning to the aircraft. Thinking it was just leaving, she ran for it, and unfortunately approached the front rather than the back, ran straight into the propellors which had just been started up and was killed. Stevenson married Vera Menchik in 1937, at which time he was the Kent County Hon.Sec, having previously been the match captain. He later became the BCF Hon.Sec.

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