John Dudley Taylor (1934-2021)
Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:15 am
I heard the sad news today that John D Taylor died on Thursday 2 December 2021, aged 87. I never met John in the flesh but he was an assiduous reader of chess magazines and I had the pleasure of exchanging emails with him from time to time as he enjoyed my many journeys down memory lane in magazine articles and was sometimes able to fill in facts and details that had escaped me. Occasionally I was able to return the favour by reuniting him with the score of a game he had played but mislaid decades before.
I doubt John Taylor's name is well-known to many contemporary players - I don't think he had been active as a player for some time - but he achieved a number of notable successes in his younger days. He won the 1955 British Under-21 Championship - a hastily-rearranged double-cycle all-play-all of only seven players which turned into a two-horse race between John and another strong chess player called Tom Landry, who later became better known for his feats on the draughts board. John came out on top by half a point. He proceeded to Caius College, Cambridge, and played in three Varsity matches, winning on top board in 1958. He appeared on the 1958 BCF National List at 3a - equivalent to 209-216 in the later three-digit scale - which means he was ranked 13th= with 23 other players in the UK at the time. In 1965 he won the prestigious Battle of Britain chess tournament.
Perhaps John's finest hour came in the 1963/64 Hastings Challengers. He scored a relatively modest 4/9 but his one win came against a reigning world champion, Nona Gaprindashvili - a curious parallel with the recently-deceased Jonathan Penrose and his defeat of reigning champ Tal a few years earlier. (Hope Nona doesn't sue me for mentioning this - I'd better append some evidence...)
John came across as a self-effacing man and revealed nothing of his later chess career or himself. From what I can glean online and in other chess sources, he worked in the coal/smokeless fuel industry and lived in Wakefield, Nottingham, Derby and Burton at various times. He played for Yorkshire on a high board in the early 1970s and I think he was a member of Burton CC some years ago. Hopefully other members of the forum can fill in the gaps I have left. His gentlemanly nature and affability shone through in his emails and I shall miss receiving them. R.I.P.
I doubt John Taylor's name is well-known to many contemporary players - I don't think he had been active as a player for some time - but he achieved a number of notable successes in his younger days. He won the 1955 British Under-21 Championship - a hastily-rearranged double-cycle all-play-all of only seven players which turned into a two-horse race between John and another strong chess player called Tom Landry, who later became better known for his feats on the draughts board. John came out on top by half a point. He proceeded to Caius College, Cambridge, and played in three Varsity matches, winning on top board in 1958. He appeared on the 1958 BCF National List at 3a - equivalent to 209-216 in the later three-digit scale - which means he was ranked 13th= with 23 other players in the UK at the time. In 1965 he won the prestigious Battle of Britain chess tournament.
Perhaps John's finest hour came in the 1963/64 Hastings Challengers. He scored a relatively modest 4/9 but his one win came against a reigning world champion, Nona Gaprindashvili - a curious parallel with the recently-deceased Jonathan Penrose and his defeat of reigning champ Tal a few years earlier. (Hope Nona doesn't sue me for mentioning this - I'd better append some evidence...)
John came across as a self-effacing man and revealed nothing of his later chess career or himself. From what I can glean online and in other chess sources, he worked in the coal/smokeless fuel industry and lived in Wakefield, Nottingham, Derby and Burton at various times. He played for Yorkshire on a high board in the early 1970s and I think he was a member of Burton CC some years ago. Hopefully other members of the forum can fill in the gaps I have left. His gentlemanly nature and affability shone through in his emails and I shall miss receiving them. R.I.P.