English Chess Forum

Question : How many British chess players have a Blue Plaque to their name ?

I think I know the answer.

Well, John, I reckon it's probably zero but it would be nice to be proved wrong.

Ambiguous question both in terms of what is meant by British chess player, and also the coverage of the Blue Plaque scheme which has come to embrace rather more initiatives than that administered by English Heritage-the original scheme having a significant London bias. Alan Turing is acknowledged in the Blue Plaque scheme at his place of birth.

Oh and I believe you also need to be dead.

Here's one for a former President of the Scottish Chess Association and Glasgow Chess Club.
Does that count?

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/vis ... bonar-law/

Howard Staunton in Notting Hill. Many years ago my friend was photographing blue plaques in London and asked me who Howard Staunton was - the blue plaque describes him as British and World Champion. He might have been regarded as the world's best player at one time, but I didn't think he was ever crowned world champion - was he?

And this one was/is on the outside of my daughter's office building in Soho Square.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-spoof ... 48970.html

Thanks for your replies.

I suspect most people will realise that I meant that the plaque is to celebrate that persons chess achievements rather than they knew chess people or have played a few games or something else that is tenuous.

The only two I am aware of are Howard Staunton and Captain WD Evans although Evans is also celebrated for inventing aids for maritime navigation.

The person usually has to have been deceased for twenty years to satisfy the English Heritage criteria.

Do we think it is worth campaigning for a plaque for someone more recent than HS ?

David Gilbert wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:00 pm

Howard Staunton in Notting Hill. Many years ago my friend was photographing blue plaques in London and asked me who Howard Staunton was - the blue plaque describes him as British and World Champion. He might have been regarded as the world's best player at one time, but I didn't think he was ever crowned world champion - was he?

No - already dead when the first official world championship match was played.

Vera Menchik? (I'm sure people born abroad are eligible.) I assume somewhere she lived survived the bombing.

We've discussed a Menchik blue plaque before...

viewtopic.php?t=1681&start=15#p44348

John Upham wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:27 pm

Thanks for your replies.

I suspect most people will realise that I meant that the plaque is to celebrate that persons chess achievements rather than they knew chess people or have played a few games or something else that is tenuous.

The only two I am aware of are Howard Staunton and Captain WD Evans although Evans is also celebrated for inventing aids for maritime navigation.

The person usually has to have been deceased for twenty years to satisfy the English Heritage criteria.

Do we think it is worth campaigning for a plaque for someone more recent than HS ?

When I was writing my Blackburne biography, I established that the whole area where he lived in his Manchester years had been demolished at least twice, but the last two houses he lived in (both in the same street in Lewisham) still exist and I wrote to the occupants (this was about 2014/2015) to see if they would be willing to have a blue plaque if it could be arranged.

One did not answer and the other replied saying they were renting but would pass the request on to their landlord, from whom I never heard.

Perhaps it would be worth the ECF making a more official-sounding approach. The addresses are numbers 45 and 50 Sandrock Road (photos I took are in my book).

Action is also needed in future to restore Blackburne's grave which is also in Lewisham.

I have also established that a bank building now stands on the site of one of Steinitz's few known addresses in London (the others no longer exist) and I can provide details if somebody wants to take action on that.

There are relatively obscure people commemorated by the scheme, so no harm campaigning for an obscure chess player if people so desire. However, I suspect that the blue plaque scheme in spite of attempts to make it seem more modern ( Freddie Mercury has a plaque!) is actually a rather niche thing. David Gilbert has referred to somebody who photographs plaques, and I'm also aware of somebody with a similar interest - there are lots of obsessives out there. What do advocates of a campaign really hope it would achieve? And outside chess history circles Blackburne is obscure - you don't get conversations about eminent Victorian chess players at my club.

John Saunders wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 24, 2020 1:26 pm

We've discussed a Menchik blue plaque before...

viewtopic.php?t=1681&start=15#p44348

From Edward Winter's Chess Notes:
7711. Vera Menchik
Leonard Barden (London) recently raised with us the subject of Vera Menchik’s death, asking, in particular, whether references could be found to her burial or cremation. We are grateful to Olimpiu G. Urcan (Singapore) for making a search which revealed this record in the Andrews Index:
menchik
On the basis of the above information Mr Barden then informed us:

‘I contacted the Streatham Park Crematorium, which confirmed that Vera Menchik Stevenson, her mother and her sister were cremated on 4 July 1944 and that their ashes were scattered at a garden of remembrance, whose reference location is known. Whether that is precise enough for a memorial to be considered is arguable. Their house in Gauden Road, London was destroyed, and the policy of English Heritage, even if it could be interested, is to put plaques only where the original building still stands.’

She did live elsewhere of course... Various addresses listed below.

http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/artic ... enchik.htm