Britbase Updates

[Gerard Killoran]

A possible identification for Fraulein Müller-Hartung.

Carl Müller-Hartung was a musician/composer based in Weimar (1834–1908)

He liked to play chess.

https://dfg-viewer.de/show?tx_dlf%5Bdou ... e81742040b

He had a daughter called Julie Müller-Hartung who was a soprano.

Müller-Hartung seems to be a unique name.

[Gerard Killoran]

However she seems to have a sister called Ilse and both can be seen on this page:

Moderne Kunst: Illustrierte Zeitschrift, Volume 12 p.260

I can't post a link but a Google Books has a copy...

Can either be matched with the photo of Fraulein Müller-Hartung?

[Carl Hibbard]

Please contact me if you see any strange security alerts especially after all the changes I am making.

[Gerard Killoran]

I've downloaded the pdf of Moderne Kunst: Illustrierte Zeitschrift, Volume 12 and got a closer look at the picture of Ilse and Julie.

I'm calling it for Julie Müller-Hartung being our chess player.

[Gerard Killoran]

I think I can confirm that Constance Eveline Wood de la Vingne is Madame de la Vingne.

Her professional name was Constance Younger

Illustrated London News - Saturday 09 November 1895 p.14

Under 'Correct Solutions Problem received' No. 2690 we find a correct solution from Constance E. Younger.

and

The Musical Times, Volume 65 March 1 1924, p.270

Obituary.

We regret to record the following deaths :

MADAME CONSTANCE YOUNGER (Mrs. H. F. Delevingne) at the age of sixty-nine. Well-known for many years as an excellent teacher of singing, she began her musical career at the Royal Academy of Music in the seventies under Sir John Goss, Walter Macfarren, Wallworth, Signor Gilardoni, &c., going later to Germany and France. In 1880 she was appointed pianoforte professor at the Guildhall School of Music, a position she resigned in 1889, a year or two after her marriage. She returned there, however, in 1906, as professor of singing, remaining until 1914, from which time up to the date of her death she devoted herself to private tuition.

[Gerard Killoran]

In addition

from

The Musical Quarterly, Volume 14, 1928 p.364

from the aricle, 'Music and Chess' by Orlando A. Mansfield

'...and last, but not least in this connection, the amateur composer of "The Jackdaw of Rheims," — Mr. Phillip Hamilton Williams, — who has been described as "an ardent chess-player and a prolific writer upon the game, having composed and published over 800 problems." Nor, on the principle of place aux dames, must we forget Mdme. Constance Younger, the sometime accompanist to Mr. Ffrangcon Davies. '

[Gerard Killoran]

Forbes-Sharp doesn't seem to be a common name in the 1890s, so here's a candidate for the father of Miss Forbes-Sharp

Fanny W. Forbes-Sharp was aged 4 in the 1881 census which would make her roughly 20 years of age at the time of the tournament.

East Riding Telegraph - Saturday 05 December 1896 p.6.png (999.82 KiB) Viewed 2753 times

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

The Miss Forbes-Sharp who played in the 1897 Ladies International tournament was listed as coming from Glasgow:
https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/18 ... iewer.html

Whereas the daugher of the Charles Forbes Sharp who died in 1896 was born in Yorkshire and lived there until at least 1939 (though she died in Oxshott, Surrey, in 1971):
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/pe ... s/GXBX-Q5N

Also, Charles Forbes Sharp was born in Aberdeen rather than Glasgow.

[Gerard Killoran]

These are true, however I can't find any trace of a Miss Forbes Sharp in Glasgow, and Glasgow newspapers didn't report her as a local girl, just representing Scotland. Constance De La Vigne was reported to be a representative of France, despite being English.

The name seems to be extremely rare. In 1891, the death was reported in some Scottish newspapers of a William Forbes Sharp in what is now Wuhan, China.

As they say, more research is needed.

[John Townsend]

Charles Forbes Sharp married Fanny Hopper in the Scarborough district in 1874. (The chief beneficiary in his will was Fanny Sharp.)

They had a daughter born in 1876 in the Driffield district, Fanny Winifred Sharp (Driffield being the place of his employment). She was married at Driffield in 1906.

A son, Stuart Forbes Sharp, was born to them at Driffield in 1880.

The death notice mentioned a son and a daughter, which may be these two.

It would seem that these two children had spent their lives, until their father's death, in Yorkshire, and had no obvious connection with Scotland.

I conclude that there is little scope for Charles Forbes Sharp being the father of Miss Forbes Sharp the chesser, though I cannot rule it out. (It is just posssible the bereaved family had moved to Scotland after the father's death and just prior to the 1897 tournament.)

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

My preferred candidate for the Miss Forbes Sharp who played in the 1897 tournament is one that John Saunders has discovered already - Mary Forbes Sharp (1860 - 1934):
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/pe ... s/P3RR-M7J

She married in 1894, so wasn't strictly speaking Miss Forbes Sharp in 1897, but I found several references that suggested that she carried on using her maiden names after her marriage. She married in Coatbridge, which is just ten miles from Glasgow.

I find it very difficult to ascertain the age of Miss Forbes Sharp in the 1897 photograph of the participants of the tournament, but 37 could be right. I would say she definitely looks older than 25 and younger than 80!

I've tried looking for "Mary Flockhart" (Mary Forbes Sharp's married name, if she used it) as a participant in chess tournaments but with any success whatsoever.

Incidentally, the Forbes part of Mary Forbes Sharp was not part of double-barrelled name but simply a middle name. I think this is the case with the Charles Forbes Sharp that you found as well.

[John Townsend]

It may be of interest to know that there is a probate grant (with will) for Mary Forbes Sharp or Flockhart:

Residence Place Fifeshire
Death Date 1 April 1934
Beneficiary's Name Robert Angus Galloway
Second Beneficiary's Name Timothy Wightman
Additional Person's Name Robert Galloway
Probate granted: 16 July 1934
Diocese of London
(Acknowledgement and thanks to Familysearch).

Use of "Sharp or Flockhart" in the probate index suggests a certain amount of interchangeability, as was suggested by Jon in an earlier post.

[John Saunders]

I am grateful for all the help with identifying players in the 1897 Ladies International.

I've now uploaded a better quality group photo which may make comparisons of faces a little easier. It has meant jettisoning the frame showing the names on the edges of the image but identities can still be found by placing the mouse pointer over a face (do not click, just hover). And if you open the image in a new tab it opens in a bigger size. Alternatively, you can follow this link to a large image at Liquipedia.

Re the countries which the players represent: I think this was a matter of mild controversy during the tournament (though I cannot recall where I read it). The organisers were at some pains to bill it as an international event but only four(?) competitors travelled from afar to take part (two from North America and two from Germany. I've a feeling there might have been a fifth but cannot recall who it was.) Some of the players seem to have been born and bred Brits but with foreign names, or foreign husbands' names. So it is just possible that Miss Forbes Sharp's Scottish credentials might have been exaggerated. On the whole I think not but it's something to bear in mind.

One thing that I didn't make specific reference to in my player notes at the website was the future link between Rita Fox and Ida Eschwege. I noted the fact that Miss Fox went on to marry J Walter Russell but did not allude to the fact that he was the anti-German 'patriot' who engineered the expulsion of Ida Eschwege's father Hermann from the City of London Chess Club during WW1. (The Eschwege family had long been resident, naturalised Brits.)

[Richard James]

Rita Fox was engaged to the problemist and player Edward Bagehot Schwann before his premature death, and married J Walter Russell shortly afterwards.

https://minorpieces.uk/2025/04/14/minor ... t-schwann/

Some time ago I tried to find out who Rita's parents were.

She appears in the 1891 census in East Ham, living with her year older sister Margaret C Fox, an adopted 7-year-old boy named Arthur Denny, two servants and a visiting couple, Herbert and Mary Barrow. Margaret and Rita were both born in Cavendish Square, London. Mary was their older sister.

Rita, originally a pet form of Margaret/Margarita or other variants, was an uncommon name in the 1860s, only becoming popular several decades later.

Her marriage record tells us her father was Charles James Fox.

There's a 1871 census record from Barnes: the household is headed by EA Fox, the wife of a dental surgeon, who appears not to be at home. Margaret C Fox, aged 6 is there, along with an adopted 6-year-old girl, Ann M Fox.

My best guess at the moment is that the adopted girl was Rita: perhaps her middle name was Margaret or Margarita.

Margaret, by the way, was Margaret Carkeet Fox, who, shortly after the 1891 census, married an Indian doctor who, much later, would be Gandhi's personal physician.

Does anyone have any other ideas or information?

[John Townsend]

Richard,

You said Charles James Fox was the father's name given on her marriage record. You also said she was born in Cavendish Square.

Putting these two clues together, I note a Charles James Fox, Esq., who resided at 27 Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square in 1858, according to Webster's Royal Red Book for January 1858. He was a dental surgeon and was still at that address in 1875.

Have you considered whether Rita could have been his daughter?