The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

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MJMcCready
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The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by MJMcCready » Tue Nov 19, 2019 2:26 pm

Greetings all. Embroiled in a writing project for the last eighteen months, I can thankfully see the light at the end of the tunnel and have begun gathering and collating material for a research project, but am in need of some assistance.The title clearly suggests what it is about, and so I wanted to ask if anyone has a publication on it, no longer need it, and would like to receive financial gain for it, then please PM me. Should anyone willingly offer advice on anything they read which was of interest to them on the title above, then please do tell and thank you very much. If someone could state which British Chess Yearbook deals with it extensively then please advise or PM me. Recommendations on magazines the other side of the pond most welcome too. Yes I have looked at all that on wiki, but that's barely scratching the surface if I may say so. Penultimately, journals and articles beyond the scope of the main broadsheets of the day, which recorded events frequently or occasionally in depth will be gratefully noted. Lastly, I will be returning home from a former colony next summer and will spend much time in The British Library. Should they house publications long out of print, please advise...I suppose the best person to ask there is Tim Harding?

Many thanks for any help given and feel free to PM me if you have related material. I am building resources but still a long way off from where I need to be.

Thanks again.

Mark

Neil Blackburn
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by Neil Blackburn » Tue Nov 19, 2019 8:03 pm

P.M. sent👍

Tim Harding
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by Tim Harding » Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:35 pm

In a way, Mark putting his request like this was unhelpful because now Neil has sent him a PM whose contents are unknown to me (and others who might be able to assist). I don't feel like exercising myself much in the matter as I may just be wasting my time duplicating Neil.

I am only posting this because my name was mentioned.

IN BRIEF:
1. You won't find me in the British Library (except very occasionally) as I don't live in the UK.

2. I am not sure this is a good topic because Tony Gillam published two booklets about the cable matches back in 1997. They are in the BL.

Cable matches 1895-1901 : Great Britain versus America / edited by A.J. Gillam.
Cable matches 1902-1911 : Great Britain versus America / edited by A.J. Gillam.

No doubt a lot of extra material can be found nowadays by subscribing to the British Newspaper Archive and (for the American side) archives of US papers.

But is there really scope for a new publication on this topic?
Tim Harding
Historian and FIDE Arbiter

Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
http://www.chessmail.com

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MJMcCready
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by MJMcCready » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:36 am

Hi Tim, yes take your point. I know you don't live in the uk but you often cite what resources it has and have answered many, many questions before, so I thought you may have cone across something.

Thanks for the reference to A.J.Gillam. If all we have is two booklets on the subject there should be scope, depending on what resources nd what his purpose for writing was. It's more the players, their backgrounds, the challenges faced, that I intend to look into. It's not the raw data pertaining to the results that matters right now. I think the next stage is to identify who has and who hasn't been written about so far.

It's most likely that I will be buying your book on Eminent Victorian Chess Players seeing as you have written about several players participating in it and it will help me understand them better.

Btw no pm was sent. I only said that in case anyone had something they no longer read and used.

Tim Harding
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by Tim Harding » Thu Nov 21, 2019 1:02 pm

Gillam didn't include the parliamentary and student matches. Offhand I don't recall what years those were played.

In at least one year the English held a qualifying tournament to decide some of the places on the team, and one year consultation games were played in London for spectators when the match was cancelled at the last minute.

Hoffer's reports in The Field were pretty comprehensive on all this as well as including the games,

My Blackburne book should be helpful too as he played in most of them.

For the US side, you should be able to find all the Brooklyn Eagle reports online.

On George Newnes, who presented the trophy, there was a contemporary biography by Hulda Friederichs, who worked for him.
Tim Harding
Historian and FIDE Arbiter

Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
http://www.chessmail.com

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Gerard Killoran
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by Gerard Killoran » Thu Nov 21, 2019 1:34 pm

I'm happy to answer questions about George Edward Wainwright, who played in five of these matches and a 'test tournament' in 1905 to select players for a match which never took place.

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MJMcCready
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by MJMcCready » Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:06 pm

Thank you both.

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MJMcCready
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by MJMcCready » Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:27 pm

Assuming you haven't been done-in by a moody virus yet to have its head kicked in, I have a question related to what has been inserted here. Question 1 is as follows, exactly who was this Sir George Newnes and what was his interest in chess? The article attached is from The Morning Post, Saturday March 14th 1896.
1896a.png
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Reg Clucas
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by Reg Clucas » Wed Apr 08, 2020 2:10 pm

MJMcCready wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:27 pm
who was this Sir George Newnes and what was his interest in chess?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Newnes

David Sedgwick
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by David Sedgwick » Wed Apr 08, 2020 3:06 pm

MJMcCready wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:27 pm
Question 1 is as follows, exactly who was this Sir George Newnes and what was his interest in chess? The article attached is from The Morning Post, Saturday March 14th 1896.1896a.png
His Wikipedia biography is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Newnes.

This tell us that in 1896 he was the publisher of the Sherlock Holmes stories. He may have been a sufficiently prominent public figure that The Morning Post felt that he needed no introduction.

He also had two spells as an MP, although he was out of Parliament in 1896.

Unless anyone can provide evidence that he was otherwise connected with chess, I would assume simply that someone prevailed upon him to donate the trophy. If the trophy was really worth £300, it is the equivalent of £35,000 - £40,000 today.

I wonder what happened to it.

Edit: I see that Reg Clucas has already posted the Wikipedia link.

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MJMcCready
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by MJMcCready » Thu Apr 09, 2020 7:07 am

So we can call him a benefactor of sorts. It would appear that the initiation of the Anglo-American cable matches was more like a glorified club match more than anything else. It's a shame the reportage does not tell us anything about what it meant to the players but if the very best were on show, there must have been a sense of excitement for it. The whole thing strikes me as something well worth writing about but requiring a good three years of meticulous research. All rather quaint yet quintessentially hard work. For a reason I can't quite put my finger on, when I seized a rare opportunity to delve into my own personal library last month, I noticed that the British Chess Magazine didn't say very much about them. I wonder why?

Tim Harding
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by Tim Harding » Thu Apr 09, 2020 3:37 pm

Since you are evidently starting virtually from scratch on Newnes, who is important for your project, you should not be satisfied with what Wikipedia can tell you.
I suggest you read the article on him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and then the biography by Hulda Friederichs who worked with him for many years and was appointed editor of the Westminster Budget. She is the source of the information about the restaurant, about his first son dying and his then taking to drink.
The Wikipedia article seems to imply that Tit-Bits was initially unsuccessful and had to be supported by Newnes's restaurant, but that was not the sequence of events.
Newnes did not have sufficient capital to start Tit-Bits but had the bright idea that a vegetarian restaurant in Manchester would be able to profitably provide cheap lunches for working men, and so he was able to raise the money needed.
The paper was quickly successful and when Newnes decided he needed to move it to London, he donated his chess library to Manchester Chess Club. Ask Alan Smith about Newnes and chess in Manchester.

In 1887 Newnes became President of the British Chess Club when it had to move premises and was reconstituted as a private company running a gentleman's club. Newnes, I believe, personally purchased the lease and the furniture.
The first cable match in 1895 was a private affair between the British Club and the Brooklyn CC so it was natural for the wealthy Newnes to donate the trophy.
In mid-1897 the club had to move once more, because of the expiry of the lease, and be reconstituted again and this was possibly the end of his association with the club.

I have found in The Field one game by Newnes on board 5 of the six-board match (the third in the series) played in Paris between a French club and the BCC:

[Event "Cercle des Echecs-British Chess Club"]
[Site "Paris"]
[Date "1890.05.24"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Newnes, George"]
[Black "Count de Tamisier"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C50"]
[PlyCount "69"]
[EventDate "1890.05.24"]
[Source "The Field 31 May 1890"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3 d6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Bg5 Be6 7. Nd5 h6 8. Bxf6
gxf6 9. Nh4 Bxd5 10. Bxd5 Ne7 11. Bb3 d5 12. Qf3 dxe4 13. Qxf6 Rf8 14. Qxe5 Qd4
15. Qxd4 Bxd4 16. dxe4 O-O-O 17. c3 Bb6 18. Rd1 Rde8 19. O-O Nc6 20. Rfe1 Ne5
21. h3 Rg8 22. Kf1 Rg7 23. f4 Ng6 24. Nxg6 fxg6 25. g3 Rge7 26. e5 c6 27. Rd6
g5 28. Rxh6 gxf4 29. gxf4 Rf8 30. Re4 Bc7 31. Be6+ Kb8 32. Ke2 Rg7 33. Bg4 Rd8
34. e6 Re7 35. f5 1-0

I seem to recall also a story that Newnes was one of the first people in Britain to own a motor car. He ordered it and when it was ready he travelled to France and drove it home. That's probably in the Friederichs book.
Tim Harding
Historian and FIDE Arbiter

Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
http://www.chessmail.com

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MJMcCready
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by MJMcCready » Thu Apr 09, 2020 4:10 pm

Well he certainly seems like a colourful character to say the least. And yes Tim thanks, I don't think I can ever read anything on wikipedia without suspicion, it appears to inadvertently exemplify everything that is awry with the internet and what digitalization has left us with. Being a historian yourself you probably wince much more than I when you see history having the richness taken out of it and reduced down to bare bones. I have nothing but pity for the generations to follow and the over-simplified accounts of the past posted on-line. If wikipedia isn't a starting point for simple info or a last resort, I don't know what it is.

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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Thu Apr 09, 2020 6:01 pm

A scientific librarian I know said, "Wikipedia is a good place to start, but a bad place to finish."

You hope the notes and links give enough info for you to check proper sources.

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MJMcCready
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Re: The Anglo-American cable matches, help needed.

Post by MJMcCready » Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:52 am

They do and as we know research is always an on-going project. Unfortunately the more reliant on material discovered on-line I become, the worse off I feel overall, as if something at hand is very wrong...maybe that's just me showing my age, and temporarily forgetting sites such as The British Newspaper Archives save us a great deal of time and money.

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