Captain King

[Brian Denman]

I was wondering if anyone has any information about Captain King. In the period from about 1901 to 1914 he seems to have edited more chess columns in this country than anyone else. He seems to have generally used the same material for the different columns. An address for him in 1904 was Whitefriars House, Carmelite Street, London, EC. Does anyone happen to know if 'Captain King' was a pseudonym and was he a well-known player of the time?

[John Upham]

Brian,

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0Jt ... ss&f=false might help but, then again, it might not.

Tim Harding, most likely, will be able to assist.

[Leonard Barden]

I have no information about Captain King, but Whitefriars House rings a bell.

In the 1950s that building in Carmelite Street, a turning off Fleet Street which goes down to the Thames, housed the London office of the United Press International news agency. From 1957 onwards I used to go there for several hours a day whenever Botvinnik was playing a world championship match.

The moves came through every half hour or so in teletype batches from Moscow, and when the game was complete or adjourned after five hours at 9pm London time I went up the road to the Guardian office which was then in Fleet Street and typed up the game score plus my report.

That was not the end of it because the non-chess playing printers were setting everything by hand, so around 11pm I went up to their department and corrected the proofs on the stone, before taking a taxi to Victoria and catching the 12.30am train to the suburbs, repeating the process the following day if there was an overnight adjournment. On a couple of occasions while awaiting a taxi I chanced to meet Barry Wood, en route to file his own copy for the Daily Telegraph.

[Richard Bates]

Brian,

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0Jt ... ss&f=false might help but, then again, it might not.

Tim Harding, most likely, will be able to assist.

Indeed he seems to have written about this before

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0Jt ... mn&f=false

[Tim Harding]

Precisely! I am glad to know you are still alive Brian; you really need to read my book!

Probably everything I know about Captain King is in that page Richard has linked to.
It's possible that the British Newspaper Archive has since digitized more papers with Captain King columns, but I have moved on to other areas of research.
If someone can find more, please post the details here.

[Brian Denman]

Thanks for this, Tim. I am still going strong! I have enjoyed two of your books, but I had not read that one. It seems that we have not identified who Captain King was. He seems to have had a number of contacts in the chess world, but I do not gain the impression that he was a top player. Unfortunately I have not found any obvious clues in his columns. Good luck, Brian

[Gerard Killoran]

My hunch, and it is only a hunch, is that Captain King was Carslake Winter-Wood. He wrote chess columns under the pseudonyms "Queen's Knight" and ""King's Rook" and was a contributor to the 'Chess Amateur' magazine.

Captain King was active from 1902-1913 and Carslake Winter-Wood lived from 1849–1924, so it is possible.

Also from http://eveningnews.atwebpages ... isitto.htm

A VISIT TO CARMELITE STREET

On a quiet day in March 2005 I took a trip to Carmelite Street in E.C.4. For many years this was the home of Associated Newspapers Ltd, publishers of the Evening News, the Daily Mail and the magazine Weekend. Carmelite Street continues on from Whitefriars Street (which is just off Fleet Street). The offices of the Evening News were situated in Whitefriars Street between 1882 and 1902. Sadly, the building which once housed the Evening News in Whitefriars Street is long gone.

In 1902 the newspaper relocated to Carmelite House (originally known as Harmsworth Buildings) in Carmelite Street, where it remained for several decades

Then, from Tim's excellent book. (Anyone with a serious interest in chess history should own a copy.)

British Chess Literature to 1914.png

And where did Carslake Winter-Wood live?

Plymouth!

This is all circumstantial, but he is a candidate.

[Leonard Barden]

A lot more information about Carslake Winter-Wood:

http://www.chessdevon.org.uk/HTML/Pioneers/cw/base.htm

[Tim Harding]

Thanks for the link, Leonard, but the writer was in error about the photograph taken at the Gastineau party on 14 June 1873. Perhaps that's unsurprising since the article was written in 2008 and the correct identification of the people in the photo was only published by me in 2015 in my Blackburne book (page 94) after Fred Wilson and others had suggested some incorrect identifications.

Carslake Winter Wood was NOT in that photograph.

The "unknown amateur" far right was Dr William Ballard junior, a prominent member of the City of London Chess Club. The player standing far left was J. Lovelock and the player behind Gastineau was Henry F. Down.

The correct names were given by Hoffer when he published the picture in The Field on 31 December 1910 and there is another (rare) source that provides independent verification of the identities.