Hastings 1895

[Tim Harding]

As some of you may be aware, there are problems with many game scores of one of the most important early English international tournaments.

None of the four (!) tournament books on Hastings 1895 are entirely reliable, nor any database (as I warned John Saunders of Britbase a while back).

Finally I am finding time to write up some of my findings in a series of articles on my website.

The introductory articles are up and also a discussion of the problem games in Round One was added today.

https://chessmail.com/history/Hastings1 ... index.html

This is probably not my final word on the subject but I am throwing it open for study and debate.

[EDIT: Some links were missing but are now fixed. I am working on the Round 2 and 3 articles now for posting later this week.]

[Gerard Killoran]

This was new to me, was it in the tournament book too?

The_Sketch_21_August_1895_0039.jpg (809.43 KiB) Viewed 403 times

[John Townsend]

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/ext ... inder.html shows, under "Hastings, 1895 (rare group photograph)", that the picture has been discussed in seven Chess Notes items.

[Gerard Killoran]

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/ext ... inder.html shows, under "Hastings, 1895 (rare group photograph)", that the picture has been discussed in seven Chess Notes items.

Odd that it was thought to be rare having been published in The Sketch.

[John Townsend]

Not odd at all, given the sequence of the seven C.N. items (published between 2006 and 2016).

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The "high-resolution" image given here:

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/pic ... stings.jpg

...as part of C.N. 10254, has what might be a photographer signature in the bottom left corner.

S. Wainjic (better attempts needed to read it!).

It might seem unlikely that the original has survived after all this time, but that might be worth following up.

[John Townsend]

There seem to be a few abentees from the photograph, including James Mason. Can we infer that the photograph session clashed with the Hastings licensing hours?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The "high-resolution" image given here:

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/pic ... stings.jpg

...as part of C.N. 10254, has what might be a photographer signature in the bottom left corner.

S. Wainjic (better attempts needed to read it!).

It might seem unlikely that the original has survived after all this time, but that might be worth following up.

Solving my own question, this is an engraving signature (the photograph was prepared for publication as an engraving) using the "company" signature for the workshop founded by prominent wood-engraver Joseph Swain:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swain_(engraver)

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG47819

The signature reads: "Swain sc" (= Swain sculpsit = either Swain or more likely one of his workshop assistants).

(The photograph, as given in the newspaper, was from the G. W. Bradshaw studio.)

[Kevin O'Connell]

Interesting to see so many walking canes (some 'disguised' as umbrellas). I do not recall seeing them in other old photos and certainly not in more recent photos. Perhaps my recent adoption of such a thing has changed my perception.

[Tim Harding]

There seem to be a few abentees from the photograph, including James Mason. Can we infer that the photograph session clashed with the Hastings licensing hours?

Maybe that's why it is not in the book. Perhaps the original is in the National Archives where I saw a lot of the original portraits (in the files for Bird and Blackburne for example). Try searching their website?

[John Townsend]

Further to Tim's post, I have just done a few (very quick) searches in the National Archives catalogue for material about the Hastings 1895 tournament and found this (Reference: COPY 1/422/123):

This record has not been digitised and cannot be downloaded.

Description:

'12 x 10 group photograph of Chess Masters''.

Copyright owner of work: George William Bradshaw, 22 Linton Crescent, Hastings. Copyright author of work: William James Donald, 9 Brook Street, Hastings. Form completed: 17 October 1895. Registration stamp: 17 October 1895.
Date: 1895 October 17
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: photograph(s)
Dimensions: 24 cm x 30 cm
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description"

There are one or two other 1895 chess items, including photographs of Tarrasch and Lasker.

[John Townsend]

Regarding Hastings, 1895 portraits, see Olimpiu G. Urcan's contribution in

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/wi ... l#CN_10465.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I think this quest for the different versions of these "photographs" may be based on a (partial) misunderstanding of how photographs were reproduced in newspapers in 1895.

I cannot claim to know enough about this to be definitive, but it is possible sometimes to tell by looking that what some call a "photograph" is actually an engraving based on a photograph. Whether a wood-cut engraving (the method used for many centuries) or photoengraving (using copper plates) is one consideration (though there are so many printing techniques it can be difficult to be sure).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_engraving

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoengraving

Just to confuse matters, steel engraving was used at times in the 19th century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_engraving

Anyway, I will leave that there. As I said, there are an incredible number of printing techniques, from antiquity up to the present day.

(Aparently, "45 trillion pages printed annually around the world" ).