Champions' Names

[Richard James]

Off the top of my head MacPherson is Hugh Dugald, known as Dugald.

Simon, are you getting confused with Duncan Kerr, who was from Surrey. I think the earlier posts referring to an Australian Stephen Kerr may be correct.

Again off the top of my head, I think JD Hockaday was Jimmy, JT Hockaday was Joe and the oldest brother, John, was JE Hockaday. I'll check this all out at some point.

[James Pratt]

SGR Kerr was from New Zealand, wore a baseball hat! Still plays, I gather.

[James Pratt]

Apparently Stuart Brown wrote to the BCF saying he wasn't strong enough to play in the Championship the following year. Well, his choice. There was a little Hockaday on the front cover of BCM once.

[Simon Brown]

Richard, you are right, definitely Duncan Kerr. Simon Kerr is someone completely different from my (non-chess) contacts list! You're also right abouthe age order of the Hockadays, though I don't know about the middle initials.

Even in 1984 Stuart Brown was plenty strong enough to play in the British. He would be top 20 in this year's line-up....

[Richard James]

Moving on:

LG O'Neill was from Taunton's School Southampton and described, rather vaguely, as 'about the oldest competitor' by the BCM, so was presumably born in 1918/1919.

The only two LG O'Neills I can find from those years were both Leonard G O'Neill, both born in 1918, one in Birkenhead and one in Cardiff.

AR Duff was from County High School, Leyton. Alan R Duff's birth was registered in 1922 in West Ham so I guess that's him.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

> 1957 U15 JA Lawrence, C Waring
Jeffrey A Lawrence
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=58960

But was that really the same Jeffrey A Lawrence playing in the US Open in 2001?

Edit: It would appear not. It seems that the Jeffrey A Lawrence who plays in America was born in 1960:
http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2006448

[Leonard Barden]

1957 Colin Waring

1967 Peter Waters

1972 Sheila Jordan

1973 Sheila Hutchinson Mary Huntchinson Elizabeth Sadler

and confirming Nick Thomas's post above 1960 Alan Dyson should be Andrew Dyson

[Alex McFarlane]

My great thanks to everyone. Please keep them coming. Final confirmation of some of the names would be welcomed as well.

There is no Kerr on the NZ grading list by the way.

It looks like there could be some interesting stories connected to some of the previous champions, and not just the obvious ones. With the 100th British coming up some of these stories on the Championship website, or indeed in a book, would be most welcome. I'm willing to co-ordinate if there are any volunteers. There are many obvious candidates for a biographical profile but this post has thrown up one or two others. There are the family successes, the code-breakers, bridge builders, even surprise winners like Combe provided an interesting story.

[John Saunders]

Alex's initiative to put these names to the forum is to be applauded, although I'm somewhat mystified by some of the errors in the original list he put up on the first page of the thread (which certainly don't come from BritBase). I will however put my hand up to introducing one error, which was 'Alan' (rather than the correct Andrew) Dyson. A case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing - I thought I knew his name was Alan (mixing him up with Alan Byron?) but then checked against Jeremy Gaige's booklet of Varsity Match results (which has full names) and found 'Andrew' (in fact. 'Andrew Charles Louis'). This source also confirmed a number of other names (e.g. Michael Kerridge).

I was the first to try and correct the list of British Champions some years ago when I noticed that the list in the yearbook was out of kilter and had some glaring errors. I first put it up on the ECF website (when I was webmaster) but moved it to Britbase when I noticed it was no longer being kept up to date. There have been times when I regretted trying to upgrade from initials to full names as this has proved to be quite a task. Old magazines and yearbooks rarely supply such data and even when they do, it can prove to be incorrect. The way we are doing it here - relying on people's memory - is probably the only viable way to harvest the names, although our memories can be faulty (as I have already indicated).

Anyway, I have now updated the list at BritBase - http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/britchamps.html - and invite people to use this as a reference. I have included the corrections which people have suggested here so far, leaving some unamended where people are unsure or the evidence is a bit flimsy. I have also included some of my own (e.g. John D Taylor 1955 U21) when a name has come back to me as I've been scanning the list.

[Richard James]

> 1957 U15 JA Lawrence, C Waring
Jeffrey A Lawrence
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=58960

But was that really the same Jeffrey A Lawrence playing in the US Open in 2001?

Edit: It would appear not. It seems that the Jeffrey A Lawrence who plays in America was born in 1960:
http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2006448

I'm pretty sure his name was/is John. I see that BigBase also calls him Jeffrey, but then they also have many games played by the likes of Leonhard William Barden and Conel Hughes Alexander.

[John Saunders]

> 1957 U15 JA Lawrence, C Waring
Jeffrey A Lawrence
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=58960

But was that really the same Jeffrey A Lawrence playing in the US Open in 2001?

Edit: It would appear not. It seems that the Jeffrey A Lawrence who plays in America was born in 1960:
http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2006448

I'm pretty sure his name was/is John. I see that BigBase also calls him Jeffrey, but then they also have many games played by the likes of Leonhard William Barden and Conel Hughes Alexander.

Richard

I think you are right. I've just done an instant amendment of the BritBase list. I also concur with your comment on Mega/Big Base name accuracy. Not a reliable source for forenames...

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

You've got "Simon GR Kerr" for "SGR Kerr" - have you determined that from elsewhere? The suggestion of "Simon" in this thread was later withdrawn.

[John Saunders]

Ah! I must have missed an entry there somewhere. I have reverted to the 'initials only' entry. Thanks for the feedback.

[John Saunders]

Another occasional problem is the misspelling of people's names on competition databases (e.g. 'Tournament Director'), with the result that they can sometimes stay that way for long periods of time and even find their way onto grading lists and rating lists. I have only just noticed that 'Lateefah Messam-Sparkes' seems to have become 'Lateefah Messam-Sparks at some indeterminate point in the last year or two. I'm pretty sure the extra 'e' wasn't an aberration on my part when I put her name on the BritBase list but I see that there is no 'e' and have amended accordingly.

[John Saunders]

... or is the version with the 'e' the correct one?! Will someone please tell me before I go completely round the bend...

At least it underlines the point that names are a nightmare.