English Chess Forum

Alec Samuels died some years ago aged 92 and, as far as I can see, his death has not been mentioned here before. As a Croydon contemporary, Leonard Barden was able to tell us something about about him in this thread. His more formal name as found in statutory records was Henry Alexander Samuels but he was always known as Alec. He played in the 1958 British Championship, having previously represented Cambridge University in Varsity matches in 1951 and 1952. He became a university lecturer in law at Southampton University and later took part in the politics of that city, becoming leader of the council between 2007 and 2010. At some point he made a return to the chessboard and figured in English grading lists up to 2019. I wrote a short biography of him as part of my Varsity match records.

Henry Alexander (Alec) Samuels, b 13 March 1930, d November 2022

Away from chess, becoming a council leader for the first time at that age must be pretty unusual.

I think the actual date of his death was 7th November, 2022 (based on a search on probatesearch.service.gov.uk)

The 2018 thread John linked to was a really good read!

It reminds me that someone (as well as hopefully Carl?) really should ensure the material posted here over the years is preserved in some way.

More laborious would be what I have seen floated a couple of times, which is mining and consolidating and curating some of the best threads to make it easier to find them again later. Many of them will be the posts from Leonard Barden!