English Chess Forum

You can read my obituary of him on the ECF website. He died Thursday 18 December.
He was, of course, an absolute mainstay of English chess administration for many years, but retired nearly 20 years ago.

Arbiter and chess administrator for many years. He had a fine collection of chess books which I believe he left to the National Chess Library, some years ago.

Very sorry to hear that: a gentleman, and someone blessed with pragmatic common sense.

PB

Sorry to hear about this (though at 91 he'd had a pretty good innings). I played alongside Eric dozens of times in Civil Service League matches - we both worked for the then Department of Education and Science. Besides being a fine county-standard player, as a person he was never less than gentlemanly and tactful, qualities that at times were regrettably necessary when I was in the side and Bob Pentecost was match captain. He must have been a superb arbiter.

Stewart's obit refers to a witty letter Eric wrote to Chess c1966, on the descriptive vs algebraic debate. The point Eric made was that descriptive need not necessarily take up more space than algebraic, provided you cut out all the unnecessary characters - e.g. the dash, the piece name or arrival square, even the move itself if it were forced. A neat brevity by Eric himself ("just to remind you, by the way, that there was a time when I might win a game" illustrated the idea to perfection.

Yes - a sad loss. He turned up at a tournament to watch me arbiting (and refused offers of travelling expenses etc) and was very encouraging. He always seemed totally unflappable, whatever the provocation, and he did an enormous amount of work for chess in general.

A true Gentleman and excellent tournament controller for many years at Guernsey.