English Chess Forum

As some of you may be aware, there are problems with many game scores of one of the most important early English international tournaments.

None of the four (!) tournament books on Hastings 1895 are entirely reliable, nor any database (as I warned John Saunders of Britbase a while back).

Finally I am finding time to write up some of my findings in a series of articles on my website.

The introductory articles are up and also a discussion of the problem games in Round One was added today.

https://chessmail.com/history/Hastings1 ... index.html

This is probably not my final word on the subject but I am throwing it open for study and debate.

[EDIT: Some links were missing but are now fixed. I am working on the Round 2 and 3 articles now for posting later this week.]

This was new to me, was it in the tournament book too?

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/ext ... inder.html shows, under "Hastings, 1895 (rare group photograph)", that the picture has been discussed in seven Chess Notes items.

John Townsend wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 09, 2026 4:11 pm

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/ext ... inder.html shows, under "Hastings, 1895 (rare group photograph)", that the picture has been discussed in seven Chess Notes items.

Odd that it was thought to be rare having been published in The Sketch.

Not odd at all, given the sequence of the seven C.N. items (published between 2006 and 2016).

The "high-resolution" image given here:

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/pic ... stings.jpg

...as part of C.N. 10254, has what might be a photographer signature in the bottom left corner.

S. Wainjic (better attempts needed to read it!).

It might seem unlikely that the original has survived after all this time, but that might be worth following up.

There seem to be a few abentees from the photograph, including James Mason. Can we infer that the photograph session clashed with the Hastings licensing hours?

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 09, 2026 8:22 pm

The "high-resolution" image given here:

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/pic ... stings.jpg

...as part of C.N. 10254, has what might be a photographer signature in the bottom left corner.

S. Wainjic (better attempts needed to read it!).

It might seem unlikely that the original has survived after all this time, but that might be worth following up.

Solving my own question, this is an engraving signature (the photograph was prepared for publication as an engraving) using the "company" signature for the workshop founded by prominent wood-engraver Joseph Swain:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swain_(engraver)

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG47819

The signature reads: "Swain sc" (= Swain sculpsit = either Swain or more likely one of his workshop assistants).

(The photograph, as given in the newspaper, was from the G. W. Bradshaw studio.)