GAC Ashcroft

[Colin Patterson]

GAC Ashcroft - I am curious to find something out about this chess player, if anyone can help.

There is currently someone on eBay who claims to be clearing out Ashcroft's house and selling off his chess books.

The seller also describes Ashcroft as 'the English Chess Champion', but I don't see his name appearing anywhere on lists of former champions?

[Roger de Coverly]

The seller also describes Ashcroft as 'the English Chess Champion', but I don't see his name appearing anywhere on lists of former champions?

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?ref=105887D perhaps

An English Chess Champion perhaps, of his local club (shown as Battersea), It's a low grading code, so he would have been playing twenty five years ago when the national codes were introduced.

"Business and Innovation" is the fancy name for Vince Cable's government department, so I might imagine Civil Service league players would have known him or of him.

[Colin Patterson]

Thanks Roger. According to BMD records, it seems likely he is a Geoffrey Ashcroft born Jul-Sep 1915 in Marylebone.

[Leonard Barden]

Ashcroft was about a 190-200 player when he was top board for Battersea in the London League in the 1950s. I recall him as a tall, blond, well built man, rather serious and formal at the board, with a predominantly strategic style. I believe he also played on a high board for Civil Service and for Surrey. Michael Franklin might remember him better.

[John Foley]

There is a nice win by a G Ashcroft in a 1971 correspondence game against TD Harding.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1449001

[Kevin Thurlow]

Ashcroft played for Patent Office, but transferred to the Trade (or DTI) club, when the Patent Office club folded. DTI changed names every so often over the years.

In 1995, he was playing a match against UNATS (for unattached players, i.e. those without a departmental team), where he was playing the UNATS captain, I was playing the DTI captain. I noticed whilst on walkabout that Ashcroft or his opponent had just castled queenside, but this was illegal as he had already moved the rook to capture a pawn and then retreated it. (Yes it does sound odd.) The CS league declares the captains act as arbiters. I stopped my opponent's clock and explained what had happened, and asked if he wanted to intervene. He agreed so we stopped Ashcroft's game and explained why. He was quite annoyed and said we should not interfere. He was a bit mollified when I pointed out that if we had not interfered, if he had reached adjudication time, with a winning advantage, the error would have been pointed out then, and the game would have had to return to move 20, which did not meet the minimum requirements for adjudication and the game would be scored as null and void. Also the captains (or deputies) were arbiters... He was quite formal, but a pleasant opponent. He, WEC Richards and Ayling played for Patent Office for a long time, with a great deal with success. Ashcroft had a distinguished career at Battersea as well.

[Colin Patterson]

Many thanks to everyone for their contributions. All very interesting.

[Tim Harding]

Yes, Ashcroft won that pretty game against me in the Postal Chess Club in 1971.
I never met him in person.

While doing research in the British Library some years ago, I found out that he must
have been pretty left-wing in his youth, as he was mentioned in "Time and Space",
official organ of the Workers' Chess League.

In the August 1939 he had reached the last 8 of the 1938 WCL correspondence chess
championship (a knockout tournament) but I saw no more about that in later issues.
Presumably WW2 interrupted it.

[John Clarke]

Could that be the same Ashcroft against whom E E Colman first sprang his variation in the Two Knights Defence in 1949?

[Kevin Thurlow]

I asked a retired member of Government Chemists Chess Club, who says...

He (Ashcroft) was at the Laboratory of the Government Chemist but left before Jan.1950. He got a B.Sc. Hons. Chemistry at London Univ. by private study and was promptly told to leave as the Scientific Officer posts were filled and he was over-qualified for the lower-class grades(!). So he went to the Patent Office and played in their Chess Team.

[Bill Drennan]

Dr Ashcroft played for Battersea from before the 2nd world war, by which time I believe he had already played in the British Championship (which he never, incidentally, won) until 2000, a couple of years or so before he passed away. He was a great and highly reliable servant of the club, coming in regularly from Hertfordshire to play in the London League until well on in his 80s. He was a very pleasant man, although his manner could be a touch formal and he was not one to go to the pub after the matches! He still had a grading in the 140s in his final season, which he had maintained pretty consistently in the previous ten years. I am not so sure about his style being strategic, as he usually played the King's Gambit as white after 1 e2 e4, an opening not known for being that!

[Gordon Cadden]

I never met GAC Ashcroft, but I believe that it is wonderful that he should not be forgotten. This is the English Chess Forum at it's best.

[John Saunders]

Could that be the same Ashcroft against whom E E Colman first sprang his variation in the Two Knights Defence in 1949?

14 years have wandered by since John asked the above question but I'm pretty sure he's right.

The Ashcroft-Colman game was published in Chess Review, May 1953, page 140...

https://archive.org/details/ChessReview ... q=ashcroft

... and I do recommend reading this article which has other interesting games in the Colman variation. However, sticking to the point, it gives the white player of the Ashcroft-Colman as "A Ashcroft".

Colman himself wrote a letter to BCM, March 1952, p70, in which he refers to "W J Ashcroft" being his opponent.

The game also appears in print in Olimpiu G. Urcan's 'Surviving Changi: E E Colman, A Chess Biography' published in 2007. There the game appears with white's name given as "A W J Ashcroft" on page 291, but the general and games indexes have "G A C Ashcroft". Also, on page 178, there is a reference to Colman playing his eponymous line against G A C Ashcroft of Battersea Chess Club. (Incidentally, it's a superb, well-researched book which deserves a place in every chess historian's library.)

Checking through newspaper and magazine sources for the period, I found only one Ashcroft with an affiliation to Battersea CC and that was GAC.

My conclusion therefore is that Geoffrey Arthur Charles Ashcroft (5 June 1915 - 14 December 2001) was the player who first faced Colman's Changi analysis. Here's the version of the score I've prepared for BritBase...

[Event "London Lge Div1 1948/49"] [Site "London"] [Date "1948.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Ashcroft, Geoffrey Arthur Charles"] [Black "Colman, Eugene Ernest"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "C58"] [PlyCount "56"] [EventDate "1948.??.??"] [EventType "team-match"] [EventRounds "1"] [EventCountry "ENG"] [SourceTitle "BritBase"] [Source "John Saunders"] [SourceDate "2026.04.03"] [SourceVersion "1"] [SourceVersionDate "2026.04.03"] [SourceQuality "1"] [WhiteTeam "Battersea"] [BlackTeam "Wimbledon"] [WhiteTeamCountry "ENG"] [BlackTeamCountry "ENG"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Qf3 Rb8 9. Bxc6+ Nxc6 10. Qxc6+ Nd7 11. d3 Be7 12. Ne4 Rb6 13. Qa4 Bb7 14. f3 f5 15. Nf2 Rb4 16. Qa3 Re4+ 17. dxe4 Bxa3 18. Nxa3 fxe4 19. fxe4 O-O 20. Be3 Qa5+ 21. c3 Qa4 22. O-O Nf6 23. Bc5 Rc8 24. Bd6 Nxe4 25. Bxe5 Nd2 26. Bd4 Nxf1 27. Kxf1 Qc6 28. Bxa7 Re8 {Sources: Chess Review, May 1953, p140; Surviving Changi: E E Colman A Chess Biography by Olimpiu Urcan, p291.} 0-1

[John Clarke]

Wow! Better late than never, John S! Well done you for all that research.

For what it's worth, the article in Chess Review (linked to above) was by Bruce Hayden, and it was later reprinted in his book Cabbage Heads and Chess Kings (Arco, 1960). A few years after that the variation was also the subject of an article in Junior Chess, which cited the CHACK piece as its main source.