English Chess Forum

An F. F. Russell is mentioned here as author of a letter published in the British Chess Magazine in 1957 from Asmara (in Eritrea):

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/bonarlaw.html

It says F. F. Russell was President of Oxford University Chess Club in 1914.

On page 152 of the American Chess Bulletin for July 1912 (mentioned in another thread!):

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... up&seq=160

There is a mention of an F. F. Russell who is New York University Chess Champion, the son of Chief Justice Isaac Franklin Russell, and at the time a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. These appear to be the same person.

From Britbase:

https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/19 ... iewer.html

"Franklin Ferriss Russell b 2 iii 1891 (New York), d 29 iii 1978 (Englewood NJ, USA)" (more at link).

The author of Eritrean Customary Law (1957).

From this blog:

http://www.edochess.ca/batgirl/IsaacFranklinRussel.html

A photograph of the father (Isaac Franklin Russell) and the tidbit that "Franklin F. [...] was in London serving with the Railway Transportation Corps".

F. F. Russell wrote "Oxford Before the Wars", an article published in 1960 in a volume of "The American Oxonian" (the yearbook of the Alumni Association of American Rhodes Scholars). That is not available online, but searches for it show that he mentions a Professor Vinogradoff in a chess anecdote, saying that he played for Oxford City Chess Club and for the County of Oxfordshire and regularly competed in the city championships.

[One for the academics thread].

7167. Franklin Russell (C.N. 7160)
Leonard Barden (London) writes:

‘In the mid-1970s I reported on that year’s Oxford v Cambridge match in my column in The Field. I received a letter from Franklin Russell, who told me of his participation in 1912-14. Cambridge could award half-blues but Oxford could not, so Russell’s team made an unsuccessful application to the Oxford Blues Committee. He asked if the situation had changed since he played, and I had to tell him that there had been several such applications over the years, but all had been rejected.

He then told me that the Oxford players of his time had created a special award of “representative colours” for their team along with a multi-coloured tie which the team wore at the match. He was keen that this initiative should be revived, and sent the Oxford team for the next year’s match a batch of seven ties, asking that they be worn. He also sent a tie, which I no longer possess, to me. Alas for his enterprise, by the mid-1970s dress attitudes were becoming more casual and only two or three of the Oxford team wore the Russell tie at the match.’

Thank you Leonard, more in C.N. 7160 (including a photograph):

Franklin Russell

And a little bit more here.