Remembering Gordon Crown (20-vi-1929 17-xi-1947)

[John Upham]

On the 17th of November 1947 British Chess lost possibly one of its biggest talents when a routine operation went sadly wrong.

Hopefully Gordon, Ian Wells and others with unfulfilled talent are all playing somewhere.

Remembering Gordon Crown (20-vi-1929 17-xi-1947)

IMG_0906.jpg

[Geoff Chandler]

William Hartston in 'NOW!' magazine. ’ (6-12 February 1981, page 80.)

"‘Some time ago the great Russian player David Bronstein gave me this advice:
Look at the games of Gordon Crown. He really understood chess."

It is Chess Note No.6742.

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter73.html

[John Upham]

William Hartston in 'NOW!' magazine. ’ (6-12 February 1981, page 80.)

"‘Some time ago the great Russian player David Bronstein gave me this advice:
Look at the games of Gordon Crown. He really understood chess."

It is Chess Note No.6742.

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter73.html

Thanks Geoff : a great little quotation.

[John Upham]

In another place (I'm beginning to sound like LP Hartley!) Trefor Thynne posted this memory of Gordon Crown :

"My late father, Reginald S. Thynne (1911-1991), was a member of Liverpool Central Chess Club before and after the war ( I still have the small trophy he won in 1937 as Club Champion). He knew Gordon Crown and often spoke about him as a tragically lost great talent. I also have in my chess collection a souvenir of a match played in Liverpool on 11th January 1947 between a Liverpool team and Amsterdam.
The Liverpool team contained some well-known names:
Board 1 ARB Thomas ( whom my father and I both knew well after we moved to Devon in the 1950s because Thomas taught for his whole career at Blundells’ School in Tiverton).
Board 2 AW Mongredien
Board 3 GT Crown ( won both games in the double-round match)
Board 5 RC Nairn
Board 6 TJ Beach
Board 8 HA Munro
Board 9 JC Bryson ( Club President)
Board 10 RS Thynne

The Amsterdam team had TJ Schelfhout on board 1 though I do not recognise any of the other names.
Liverpool won the two-round match 21.5-12.5 (12.5-4.5 and 9-8).
The match was played at Radiant House, which appears to have been the British Council Centre in the city.
The souvenir which I have is an inscribed wooden score-pad, presented to the home players by their Dutch visitors."

[David Sedgwick]

What happened to Board 4?

I was interested in the name of Board 2, A W Mongredien. Is he related to Augustus Mongredien, a friend and opponent of Paul Morphy some 90 years earlier?

[Richard James]

I was interested in the name of Board 2, A W Mongredien. Is he related to Augustus Mongredien, a friend and opponent of Paul Morphy some 90 years earlier?

He was Alfred Wornum Mongredien (1877-1954), the son of Augustus Mongredien junior and the grandson of Morphy's friend, better known as a problemist. He was born and died in London, and spent much of his life in France, but lived in Liverpool in the late 1940s, being champion of Liverpool Chess Club in 1945 and 1946.

https://unoscacchista.com/2020/01/17/fu ... -fantasma/

[Geoff Chandler]

I was looking through an MCO 7 (published 1947) Walter Korn in the acknowledgements (dated,England 1946) thanks his youthful friend from Liverpool, T. G. Crown (sic) for his valuable assistance. I assume this is Gordon. One of the two known games by Walter Korn is an off hand game played v Gordon in 1943. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2049700

[Leonard Barden]

The photo at the top of the page was most likely taken at Hastings 1946-47, where Crown won the Premier Reserves B and du Mont was reporting for the B CM and Guardian, Press photographers used to come to Hastings on the first day, so this was probably taken during round one. The man in the background with the pipe and glasses looks like AT Watson of Brighton, who was a regular congress goer.

[Geoff Chandler]

I noticed the Gordon Crown acknowledgement whilst looking at MCO 7 to see if it mentioned the game Kotov - Yudovich, USSR Championship (1939) game because in 'The Art of Checkmate' ( page 135 in my algebraic edition) by Ranaud and Kahn they mention the game was analysed in great detail by players onboard the Piriapolis taking them to Argentina for the 1939 Olympiad. (I found the passenger list - see the link below. Najdorf, Alexander, B.H.Wood etc...and one of the authors, Victor Kahn!)

Ranaud and Kahn say it was not in the newly published MCO 6 adding everyone onboard had a copy. It's not but it is in MCO 7. See https://www.chessgames.com/perl/kibitzi ... 6&reply=47 where it appears that an actual game between Kotov - Yudovich as well as the original game has been credited to the onboard analysis.

Gordon's most famous win was against Kotov. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1313970

In the first post John mentions Ian Wells. Ian too has a victory against Kotov. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1528198

[John Townsend]

See Gordon Crown, by Edward Winter: https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/crown.html