Britbase Updates

Brian Denman · Post by **Brian Denman** » Fri Feb 13, 2026 10:22 am

Henry Thomas Ward does not seem to have used his second initial for chess games. There is a game of his published in the Reading Observer of 24.12.1897 in which he beat the famous Henry Bird, though the latter did not play up to his normal standard. Unfortunately I cannot remember how to adopt the pgn format, but someone might kindly like to reproduce it.

Jon D'Souza-Eva · Post by **Jon D'Souza-Eva** » Fri Feb 13, 2026 1:55 pm

There were quite a lot of "H Ward"s around at the time and I think it quite likely that their results and perhaps even clubs have been mixed up a bit.
See https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/19 ... .html#ward

Gerard Killoran · Post by **Gerard Killoran** » Fri Feb 13, 2026 5:52 pm

Brian Denman wrote: ↑
Fri Feb 13, 2026 10:22 am
Henry Thomas Ward does not seem to have used his second initial for chess games. There is a game of his published in the Reading Observer of 24.12.1897 in which he beat the famous Henry Bird, though the latter did not play up to his normal standard. Unfortunately I cannot remember how to adopt the pgn format, but someone might kindly like to reproduce it.

Brian Denman · Post by **Brian Denman** » Fri Feb 13, 2026 6:10 pm

Many thanks for reproducing this game, Gerard. I cannot remember seeing Jon's extract from BritBase before, but it seems to suggest that the game could have been played by other Henry Wards!

Gerard Killoran · Post by **Gerard Killoran** » Fri Feb 13, 2026 6:46 pm

Brian Denman wrote: ↑
Fri Feb 13, 2026 6:10 pm
Many thanks for reproducing this game, Gerard. I cannot remember seeing Jon's extract from BritBase before, but it seems to suggest that the game could have been played by other Henry Wards!

A simple free program for creating pgn files is Chesspad

http://www.wmlsoftware.com/chesspad.html

Just enter the moves and then
Game - Copy as - PGN
then Paste into any text editor.

It's limited but OK for looking at small database files

Brian Denman · Post by **Brian Denman** » Fri Feb 13, 2026 6:55 pm

Thanks for this, Gerard. I'll give it a go when I next need to reproduce a game in this format.

SeanCoffey · Post by **SeanCoffey** » Mon Feb 16, 2026 9:49 pm

Here is another game from Hastings 1932/33:

John Saunders · Post by **John Saunders** » Mon Feb 16, 2026 11:45 pm

SeanCoffey wrote: ↑
Mon Feb 16, 2026 9:49 pm
Here is another game from Hastings 1932/33:

Many thanks, Sean. I've added the game to the BritBase collection.

John Saunders · Post by **John Saunders** » Sat Feb 28, 2026 5:40 pm

The BritBase library is steadily growing.

https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/britb ... ments.html

Today I have added 12 of the bulletins which Ritson Morry published in 1950/51. Each is of six pages and has coverage of chess played in the Midlands, London and the country in general when there were major events on (such as the 1950 Southsea tournament, British Championship, Hastings, etc.) There are game scores, some with annotations (by Morry and also Leonard Barden), match results, book reviews.

I have earlier issues of the bulletins but have balked at scanning them as they are B4 size (250x383mm) and in an extremely delicate state, particularly along the folds. They are too big for a A4 flatbed scanner and obviously cannot be put through a document scanner. I would need to set up a stand to hold a camera and then photograph each page individually. Too much trouble involved...

Christopher Kreuzer · Post by **Christopher Kreuzer** » Sat Feb 28, 2026 9:36 pm

How many pages are we talking about, John? Number of issues at B4 size and number of pages each and overall total? I (and probably others) might be able to help. Once you have the right set-up, it can be done quickly and then you know the material is safely digitised.

John Saunders · Post by **John Saunders** » Sun Mar 01, 2026 11:42 am

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑
Sat Feb 28, 2026 9:36 pm
How many pages are we talking about, John? Number of issues at B4 size and number of pages each and overall total? I (and probably others) might be able to help. Once you have the right set-up, it can be done quickly and then you know the material is safely digitised.

I think I have about 20-25 issues (bulletins from 1948-early 1950), each of eight B4 pages. I have the photographic equipment to do it but I lack two things: (a) a suitable stand or frame onto which to mount the camera; (b) patience! I cannot stress too much how delicate the paper is on nearly all these issues - every time I touch it, however carefully I handle it, the paper seems to tear slightly more along the fold lines. It means that the paper would have to be handled very carefully as pages are put in place or turned over. It definitely wouldn't be something that could be done quickly.

Other copies of this material exist, hopefully in a better state than mine: I've seen tweets from DMU which feature excerpts from these 'En Passant' (Ritson Morry) publications. For all I know they have already scanned at least some of them. Maybe the ECF could be persuaded to organise the scanning of this historical material. They've done a decent job of getting issues of Chess Moves online back as far as 2005 but this is just the tip of the iceberg. CM goes back to the 1990s and before it was BCF Newsflash which carried a lot of information that is invaluable to chess researchers. BCF/ECF Yearbooks are also excellent sources of information, particularly for BCF Congresses (as we used to call British Championships),county matches and National Club Championship matches. I have some of these going back to the 1930s but with many gaps in the sequence. I imagine all of them will be in the DMU collection. It would be great to see all this material digitised. An arduous, labour-intensive job, of course, but someone willing to do it should get an automatic ECF President's Award and MBE as a reward...

Gerard Killoran · Post by **Gerard Killoran** » Sun Apr 19, 2026 5:59 pm

The latest update of 17th Hastings Premier 1936/37 ...

https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/1 ... iewer.html

...drew attention to me of the game Grace Alekhine - A. Ireland in the Third Class Morning tournament.

I believe A. Ireland of Winchester was:
Name Nicolas Arthur Ireland
Birth abt 1923
Death 6 Jul 1944

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/152 ... ur-ireland

A. Ireland was a pupil at St. Thomas's School in Winchester and played for their team in 1936-37, so would have been 13 or 14 at the time of the Mme. Alekhine game.

John Saunders · Post by **John Saunders** » Mon Apr 20, 2026 2:03 pm

Thanks, Gerard. I think you are right and have added some details on the 1936/37 Hastings page. What puzzled me slightly was that he was referred to as 'A Ireland' in various schools chess newspaper references but 'Nicolas Arthur Ireland' in statutory records. However, I found him in the 1939 census (though FindMyPast had misspelt his surname) as Arthur N Ireland (d.o.b. 20 June 1923, apprentice to a heating draughtsman, living with his mother, his father absent). His father was also Nicolas Ireland though married as William N Ireland. I'm wondering whether the son preferred Arthur to avoid confusion with his father or possibly as a result of an estrangement.

Kevin Thurlow · Post by **Kevin Thurlow** » Mon Apr 20, 2026 10:21 pm

"I'm wondering whether the son preferred Arthur to avoid confusion with his father or possibly as a result of an estrangement."

It doesn't explain the ordering of names, but a family I know has the tradition of naming the first-born son after the father, so if the father has first names Colin Brian, the son would be called (say) Colin Albert, and the family call the son Albert (to differentiate from Colin senior), but everyone else calls him Colin. This can get confusing... A member of my chess club was such a person and I asked someone how "Albert had got on in a match", they said, "Who's Albert?", and I said, "Sorry, I meant Colin". It gets even more confusing if siblings of the father turn up as they talk about Brian, and of course you know him as Colin.

Or it could be what you said...

Gerard Killoran · Post by **Gerard Killoran** » Tue Apr 21, 2026 12:00 am

Slightly off topic

: Shannon 2.png (544.83 KiB) Viewed 4540 times

: Shannon 3.png (382.97 KiB) Viewed 4540 times

: Shannon 34.png (706.16 KiB) Viewed 4540 times

From

https://www.szachypolskie.pl/mistrzostw ... hach-1935/

From the left: A. M. S. Shannon, Olga Menchik, Rose Herman and C. Skjonsberg.

: Shannon 1.jpg (1.17 MiB) Viewed 4540 times

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