English Chess Forum

My first post in this forum, therefore: Hi everybody

I'm just writing a book about the first international tournament, London 1851, and tried to gather information on the participants. In 4 cases I couldn't find anything. A bit weird, because all of this guys were probably halfway experienced players. The 4 names are: M. Brodie, E.S. Kennedy, J. R. Mucklow and S. Newham.

Has anybody information on one of them or can name literature where I can look up?

Many thanks in advance,
Mario

Wikipedia's article on this suggests that J.R. Mucklow is a James R. Mucklow. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not to trust it!

Chessgames lists some games from the tournament.

It has the following:
M. Brodie = Alfred Brodie

It draws a blank with Kennedy and Mucklow.

This agrees with Alfred Brodie and Elijah Williams.

As part of the project the London International Tournament's committee also organized a "London Provincial Tournament" for British players who were not strong enough to be invited to play in the International Tournament. The committee "promoted" E.S. Kennedy, Edward Löwe, James R. Mucklow, and Alfred Brodie to play in the International Tournament rather than the Provincial Tournament, in order to obtain the number of players required for a knock-out tournament.

(see http://www.worldchesslinks.net/ezc03.html)

I wonder if E. S. Kennedy was a relative of Hugh Alexander Kennedy, who also took part in the tournament?

James Mucklow seems to have continued playing chess after 1851 - there appear to be a couple of positions from his games at a tournament in London in 1864 here:
http://tinyurl.com/36xexbf
Though I can't work out whether he was on the winning or losing side of these! (Edit: In fact they might be compositions).

Here he is mentioned as being from Manchester:
http://tinyurl.com/32wtdmc

Here is the result of a match between Manchester and Liverpool chess clubs, in which a Mr Mucklow took part:
http://tinyurl.com/36uzeax

But perhaps this is the wrong Mr Mucklow? According to Staunton there was another Mr Mucklow on the scene:
http://tinyurl.com/33etcrp

Jon D'Souza-Eva wrote:I wonder if E. S. Kennedy was a relative of Hugh Alexander Kennedy, who also took part in the tournament?

As far as I know he wasn't.
The games of the tournament are well known. Staunton published a tournament book in 1852, where all the games are enclosed (today also in the big databases like ChessBase of course).

Concerning the "promotion" of players from the Provincial Tournament, Staunton wrote in the tournament book p. LXIV: "Six English players of note, Messrs. Staunton, Wyvill, M.P., Newham, Kennedy, Williams, and Bird, entered the lists agains this formidable array. The number of sixteen combatants was filled up by the entry of Mr. Mucklow, and of Messrs. Brodie and E. S. Kennedy. As eights prizes were offered by the commitee for competition, the number of sixteen was as favourable as could have been devised for the ultimate pairing-off of the antagonists."

Jon D'Souza-Eva wrote:

As part of the project the London International Tournament's committee also organized a "London Provincial Tournament" for British players who were not strong enough to be invited to play in the International Tournament. The committee "promoted" E.S. Kennedy, Edward Löwe, James R. Mucklow, and Alfred Brodie to play in the International Tournament rather than the Provincial Tournament, in order to obtain the number of players required for a knock-out tournament.

(see http://www.worldchesslinks.net/ezc03.html)

Careful there, the bit you are quoting from is a mirror of the Wikipedia page. When you see a Wikipedia mirror, it is often best to check back with the Wikipedia page and drill down to the original sources used (if any). I'll expand on that further in another post. Some of the Google Books references you found are interesting though!

Alex Holowczak wrote:Wikipedia's article on this suggests that J.R. Mucklow is a James R. Mucklow. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not to trust it!

Wikipedia is fine if you use it the way it should be used. The rule of thumb (as you might know already, so apologies if this comes across as a lecture) is to see if what is said in the article has a source (indeed, this is true of everything you read - you either check what is said with the original source, or you examine the known credibility and reliability of the author, which you mostly can't do with Wikipedia).

If there is no source, don't trust it unless you can find a source yourself. If there is a source given (usually linked to a footnote at the bottom of the article), and it is an online source or a book you have a copy of, you can go and confirm yourself whether the article is correct or not. In other words, Wikipedia articles are mostly just an aggregation of sources, but checks and verification are always needed unless (and even if) you trust the work done by the Wikipedia editor(s).

In this case, the main source is the book already referred to elsewhere in this thread, the book by Staunton, which is online here as it has been scanned and is available at Google Books (and undoubtedly elsewhere as well):

http://books.google.com/books?id=_SUCAAAAYAAJ

The book is fascinating. Well worth reading. It has also been reprinted by Hardinge Simpole as well (hope I spelt that right!).

EDIT: I take the above back. Staunton's writing is unbelievably turgid!

Alex Holowczak wrote: M. Brodie = Alfred Brodie

It draws a blank with Kennedy and Mucklow.

Possibly the "M." was a Mister (especially if there is some French) that got turned into an 'M' at some point.

Alex Holowczak wrote: This agrees with Alfred Brodie and Elijah Williams.

You'd really have to ask them where they got that information from and how reliable it was.

PW Sergeant's description of the tournament is interesting (from A Century of British Chess).

A couple of snippets:

"At the last moment it was found that Jaenisch and Buckle (though he had entered and paid the fee) could not arrive in time; and as substitutes for them were put in E.S. Kennedy, a brother of the Captain and described as "a rising young amateur" at the St. George's, and M. Brodie."

Four of the stronger players were paired together: Anderssen against Kieseritzky and Löwenthal against Williams. Staunton decided this was unfair and called the players together to propose that the first round matches should be best of 5 rather than best of 3 games, but the proposal was defeated by one vote. Meanwhile, two of the weaker players, Mucklow and E.S. Kennedy, were paired together, Mucklow winning.

Sergeant again:

"Mucklow, whom The Chess Player's Chronicle describes as "a player from the country, never before even heard of, and to whom a first-class master would give the odds of a Rook," was certain of a prize."

I'm suspicious about 'Alfred' Brodie, which I don't recall seeing in any reliable source. I'll see what else I can find out over the next few days.

Richard James wrote: Four of the stronger players were paired together: Anderssen against Kieseritzky and Löwenthal against Williams. Staunton decided this was unfair and called the players together to propose that the first round matches should be best of 5 rather than best of 3 games, but the proposal was defeated by one vote. Meanwhile, two of the weaker players, Mucklow and E.S. Kennedy, were paired together, Mucklow winning.

There was a lot of this very Victorian(?) running of the tournaments by meetings and votes by the players. The stuff about a rival tournament run by the London Chess Club (who boycotted the more prestigious tournament) is fascinating. I suspect the politics involved there might even outshine some of the wrangles seen in the BCF/ECF/county scenes. It seems the one constant in British and English chess is politics!

Richard James wrote:I'm suspicious about 'Alfred' Brodie, which I don't recall seeing in any reliable source. I'll see what else I can find out over the next few days.

It's astonishing how difficult it is to ascertain the forenames of chess players of old!

This book lists an Alfred Brodie as donating £5 to help fund the 1851 tournament (Staunton gave £10):
http://tinyurl.com/32cj4x9

Regarding Mucklow - I found several references to a fairly well known Mucklow of the period who lived in Oxford. I can't find anything which gives his full name. The Mucklow who entered the tournament, James Mucklow, definitely seems to have come from Manchester.

Jon D'Souza-Eva wrote:Regarding Mucklow - I found several references to a fairly well known Mucklow of the period who lived in Oxford. I can't find anything which gives his full name. The Mucklow who entered the tournament, James Mucklow, definitely seems to have come from Manchester.

This would be at least an interesting result. Could you indicate the sources?
By the way, I think it's remarkable, that not only about Mucklow, Brodie etc., but also about the much more famous players (with the exeption of Staunton and Anderssen) no serious book or article was written. The "old masters" are really underestimated!

A short history of chess by Harold James Ruthven Murray says J. Mucklow was from Manchester. For S. Newham it says he came from Nottingham and lived from 1792 to 1875.