Geoffrey Harold Rowson (1910-1943) vs Hugh Alexander, 1926
Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2016 12:00 pm
This is an attempt to tie up a few loose threads from a forum discussion in 2010 in which a number of us were working together to identify the forenames of all those players who have won British Championship titles. Also, it's an opportunity to publish a game played between two early junior champions. (I'm not sure the first publication of a game played 90 years previously counts as a 'scoop' for the EC Forum but if it does, it is.)
GH Rowson won the British Boys' (Under-18) Chess Championship in 1927, and in 2010 the forum had established that his full name was in all probability Geoffrey Harold Rowson who had sadly died in 1943 on active service with the RAF. (If you wish to re-read what was written then, click here.) One other chess player called Harry Rowson (who died in 1951 aged 75 and received an obit in BCM) was also mentioned in forum posts.
Evidently forum discussions here have been of benefit to someone else researching GH Rowson and his family as I stumbled upon this page. It builds on some of the comments made in the forum discussion (particularly Richard James' typically perceptive observations) and provides more info about him.
In summary, the 1927 British Boys' Champion was indeed called Geoffrey Harold Rowson, and Richard James' surmise about his possible Jewish ancestry (based on the forenames of his parents) was also correct. His birth name was Geoffrey Harold Rosenbaum and his birth was registered in Brentford, Middx, in the April quarter of 1910. It turns out that the Harry Rowson whose obit appeared in BCM in 1951 was Geoffrey's uncle. Harry seems to have been a very interesting man who went to the USA in the 1900s to help Emanuel Lasker in running a chess magazine (it says here). The entire Rowson/Rosenbaum family seems to have been involved in the film industry in one form or another and there is much to be found online should anybody be interested in following any of this up. Geoffrey's elder brother Leslie Rowson was a cinematographer who worked with a number of celebrated film-makers.
The reason I have gone back over this now is because I have just input a Geoffrey Rowson game which appeared amongst the Tinsley* notebook material I am currently working on. It comes from the 1926 British Boys' Championship and his opponent was Hugh Alexander. The British Boys' Championship was held over Easter at Hastings Chess Club (as it always was in those days). It was a two-part event, with four players qualifying from preliminary sections for a round-robin final. Alexander scored 2½/3, GH Rowson 1½, and AJA Goetzee and VJR Soanes (misspelt 'Soames' in the BCM report, May 1926, p227 - Vic Soanes later became BCF President) on 1. It's not the greatest game in the world (hardly surprising since junior chess was practically non-existent in those days) but Rowson stood very well until a calamitous sequence from move 31 onwards. Considering that Geoffrey Rowson was a year younger than Alexander, it wasn't a bad effort. Evidently he had better luck in 1927 (though I've not seen any games for that year).
Another loose end - in this 2010 post E Michael White recalled Alexander making a comparison between a game he (EMW) played in Cheltenham 1972 and the above game from 1926. Perhaps he might like to make the comparison himself (if he has the score of his 1972 game), to see if there are similarities.
* Tinsley notebooks - the forum's keenest chess history sleuths will be aware but others may not - the Times chess columnist ES Tinsley (died 1937) kept copious notes of games for his columns in the Times and elsewhere and some of this material is still extant. Tony Gillam very kindly lent me a hefty pile of photocopies recently and I have been laboriously inputting games from pre-1937 British Championships. Many of these games are seeing the light of day for the first time. The fruit of my labours may be enjoyed by all at BritBase - the best place to start looking is the 'What's new?' page.
EDIT: I had wondered if this might be Alexander's earliest extant game. But it proves not to be the case (see David McAlister's comment below). I found the game F.H. Cunnington 0-1 C.Alexander, ENG 1924 on the commercial database StarBase 4.56, which can be unreliable as regards players' names and attributions but came up trumps here.
GH Rowson won the British Boys' (Under-18) Chess Championship in 1927, and in 2010 the forum had established that his full name was in all probability Geoffrey Harold Rowson who had sadly died in 1943 on active service with the RAF. (If you wish to re-read what was written then, click here.) One other chess player called Harry Rowson (who died in 1951 aged 75 and received an obit in BCM) was also mentioned in forum posts.
Evidently forum discussions here have been of benefit to someone else researching GH Rowson and his family as I stumbled upon this page. It builds on some of the comments made in the forum discussion (particularly Richard James' typically perceptive observations) and provides more info about him.
In summary, the 1927 British Boys' Champion was indeed called Geoffrey Harold Rowson, and Richard James' surmise about his possible Jewish ancestry (based on the forenames of his parents) was also correct. His birth name was Geoffrey Harold Rosenbaum and his birth was registered in Brentford, Middx, in the April quarter of 1910. It turns out that the Harry Rowson whose obit appeared in BCM in 1951 was Geoffrey's uncle. Harry seems to have been a very interesting man who went to the USA in the 1900s to help Emanuel Lasker in running a chess magazine (it says here). The entire Rowson/Rosenbaum family seems to have been involved in the film industry in one form or another and there is much to be found online should anybody be interested in following any of this up. Geoffrey's elder brother Leslie Rowson was a cinematographer who worked with a number of celebrated film-makers.
The reason I have gone back over this now is because I have just input a Geoffrey Rowson game which appeared amongst the Tinsley* notebook material I am currently working on. It comes from the 1926 British Boys' Championship and his opponent was Hugh Alexander. The British Boys' Championship was held over Easter at Hastings Chess Club (as it always was in those days). It was a two-part event, with four players qualifying from preliminary sections for a round-robin final. Alexander scored 2½/3, GH Rowson 1½, and AJA Goetzee and VJR Soanes (misspelt 'Soames' in the BCM report, May 1926, p227 - Vic Soanes later became BCF President) on 1. It's not the greatest game in the world (hardly surprising since junior chess was practically non-existent in those days) but Rowson stood very well until a calamitous sequence from move 31 onwards. Considering that Geoffrey Rowson was a year younger than Alexander, it wasn't a bad effort. Evidently he had better luck in 1927 (though I've not seen any games for that year).
Another loose end - in this 2010 post E Michael White recalled Alexander making a comparison between a game he (EMW) played in Cheltenham 1972 and the above game from 1926. Perhaps he might like to make the comparison himself (if he has the score of his 1972 game), to see if there are similarities.
* Tinsley notebooks - the forum's keenest chess history sleuths will be aware but others may not - the Times chess columnist ES Tinsley (died 1937) kept copious notes of games for his columns in the Times and elsewhere and some of this material is still extant. Tony Gillam very kindly lent me a hefty pile of photocopies recently and I have been laboriously inputting games from pre-1937 British Championships. Many of these games are seeing the light of day for the first time. The fruit of my labours may be enjoyed by all at BritBase - the best place to start looking is the 'What's new?' page.
EDIT: I had wondered if this might be Alexander's earliest extant game. But it proves not to be the case (see David McAlister's comment below). I found the game F.H. Cunnington 0-1 C.Alexander, ENG 1924 on the commercial database StarBase 4.56, which can be unreliable as regards players' names and attributions but came up trumps here.