The Cable Test Tournament of 1905

[Gerard Killoran]

The Sydney Morning Herald, (Saturday 22 April 1905) contains the following information:

International Cable Chess - The City of London C.C. recently invited the following gentlemen to compete in a trial tourney with a view to filling the boards against America:- Atkinson, Dod, English, Gunston, Jacobs, Macdonald, Michell, Palmer, Richmond, Shoosmith, Tattersall, Thomas, Wahltuch, Wainwright, Wildman. It is a good omen that many of the above players are names unknown; it shows a desire to leave the beaten track of the beaten veteran.

We know the tournament took place as the following game was published:

[Event "City of London C.C. Cable Match Test Tournament"] [Site "London"] [Date "1905.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Tattersall, Creassey Edward Cecil"] [Black "Wainwright, George Edward"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "C65"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.c3 Bd7 6.Ba4 g6 7.Nbd2 Bg7 8.Nf1 d5 9.Bc2 h6 10.h3 Qe7 11.Qe2 Rd8 12.Bd2 Be6 13.a3 O-O 14.g4 dxe4 15.dxe4 Nd7 16.Ne3 Nb6 17.b3 Nd4 18.cxd4 exd4 19.Nd5 Bxd5 20.exd5 Rfe8 21.Qxe7 Rxe7+ 22.Kf1 d3 23.Rc1 dxc2 24.Bb4 Red7 25.d6 cxd6 26.Rxc2 Nd5 27.Bd2 Rc7 28. Rxc7 Nxc7 29.h4 Ne6 30.Kg2 d5 31.Rd1 d4 32.Ne1 Rc8 33.f4 Nc5 34.b4 Ne4 35. Kf3 f5 36.h5 Re8 37.gxf5 gxf5 38.Bc1 Nc3 {Source Sunday Times (Sydney) Sunday 6 August 1905 Magazine Section p.2} 0-1

Unfortunately, the international match itself was abandoned due to a snapped cable - and of the players listed above, Michell, Gunston and Richmond took part in consultation games with the rest of the team to amuse the disappointed spectators. Were they the successful candidates? Unfortunately BCM of 1905 does not mention the test tournament at all - does anyone have a record of it?

[Tim Harding]

The cable match selection was old news in England by the time that Sydney paper reported it.
The Field had reported the result of the selection tournament on 8 April 1905 (volume 105 page 571)
showing that in fact only 6 of the invited players participated.
G. W. Richmond was not one of them but was selected anyway.
Also selected early were Atkins, Bellingham, Blackburne, Burn, T. F. Lawrence and W. Ward.

Michell scored 4.5, Shoosmith 3, Wainwright, Gunston and Thomas all 2 pts and Tattersall 1.5.
Hoffer said that Mitchell was definitely selected and two more places + reserves were under consideration.

Also on 8 April, but evidently with a later deadline, the Manchester Courier (perhaps from a Press Association wire report) said that Shoosmith and F. J. Lee had got the last two places. We can infer that Gunston was a reserve.

[Gerard Killoran]

Thanks Tim.

It's still odd that such a strong tournament should go unreported in the BCM when it was written up and a game score published on the other side of the world. Does anyone know of a cross-table?

[James Pratt]

I could not find mention in 'Chess Results 1901-1920' - Di Felice (McFarland) which is normally pretty good. I would happily give space in BCM today if anybody cares to dash off a page or so about the match and qualification.

James Pratt
Editor
www.britishchessmagazine.co.uk

[O.G. Urcan]

Have many previous editors of the British Chess Magazine offered to publish material that "anybody cares to dash off"?

[Gerard Killoran]

I think that's more than a little unfair as James has taken the time to look up the information and post a response. Something I wish the BCM would do is to make some of its archive available online. I find it exasperating that American Universities have scanned editions of the BCM (up to 1923) which can be searched and downloaded in the USA for free, but I can't even pay to see them here.

Are there copyright problems stopping the BCM doing something similar here, perhaps through the British Newspaper Archive?

[John Upham]

I think that's more than a little unfair as James has taken the time to look up the information and post a response. Something I wish the BCM would do is to make some of its archive available online. I find it exasperating that American Universities have scanned editions of the BCM (up to 1923) which can be searched and downloaded in the USA for free, but I can't even pay to see them here.

Are there copyright problems stopping the BCM doing something similar here, perhaps through the British Newspaper Archive?

Gerard,

I have wanted to digitally recover BCM since the time that I first became involved. I want to go beyond simple scanning.

We have been investigating the cost of OCRing the archive since 1881 and looking at a significant commercial partner to make this happen.

This would mean that BCM could be keyword searched from 1881 onwards. This would be a significant academic resource.

Our first objective would be to digitally recover all of the indexes. At least then you could determine which issue contained an article of interest.

All of this is being investigated but taking more time that I would like.

I'm also attempting to determine if Google Books have already scanned BCM in its entirety. I'm guessing that they have but confirming this has yet to happen.

Communication with the right people at Google is challenging.

Suggestions are welcome.

I thought I would "dash something off": I hope it was not too facile.

[Gerard Killoran]

Thanks John. Have you had a look at http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008887232 ? Here all the BCMs up to 1922 can be text-searched and individual pages downloaded - in the USA. Perhaps some deal could be done with the Hathi Trust to find out how they do their indexing. I've been able to have a look at the volumes scanned so far, but whereas the quality seems high - apart from photographs - some of them have pages missing.

It is a resource which would at the very least drive traffic to your website and sell a few more subscriptions, but its commercial value must be hard to estimate. As a record of chess activity since 1881 however it's priceless.

[John Moore]

There is a US company called Euriskodata (you might consider the name rather amusing!) advertising on E Bay which offers to sell a CD-Rom with the BCM from 1881 to 1905 (missing 1894) at a very reasonable price. I leave it to others to argue over the question of copyright but I have certainly seen these disks offered for sale by reputable dealers in Europe.

[Gerard Killoran]

There is a US company called Euriskodata (you might consider the name rather amusing!) advertising on E Bay which offers to sell a CD-Rom with the BCM from 1881 to 1905 (missing 1894) at a very reasonable price. I leave it to others to argue over the question of copyright but I have certainly seen these disks offered for sale by reputable dealers in Europe.

All they have done is download all the BCM PDFs scanned by Google - which is why 1894 is missing. Anyone with reasonable expertise in searching the web can download all these for free. If you want a laugh go to http://www.euriskodata.com/about-us.html and read just what their 'values' are.

[Gerard Killoran]

I have subsequently found the following report from the Daily News - 06 April 1905.

Daily News 06 April 1905 Cable Match Table.jpg

[John McKenna]

Nice find, Gerard, and remarkably clear.

[Michell,Reginald Price (1873-1938) was British (Amateur) Champion in 1902.]

[Kevin Thurlow]

Reginald Pryce Michell I think. He is buried in Kingston cemetery, in the same plot as his wife Edith (Tapsell) Michell, who died some years later. John Saunders and I tracked down the grave a few years ago.

[John McKenna]

Good work by grave hunters Saunders & Thurlow there then.

I see that Gerard's latest find, above, also makes mention of William Ewart Napier (b. 1881 Camberwell London, d. 1952 Washington DC)

The entry for Napier in the Oxford Companion to Chess (1984 Ed.) makes interesting reading and contains reasons for Napier's divided loyalties -

"Engish-born player... emigrated to the USA when he was five... (tied) for second place... in the New York State Ch. 1901. Later that year he returned to England... in the first BCF Ch. 1904 he tied with Atkins [*] for first... In 1905... returned to New York. Soon after... gave up first-class competitive chess, became a naturalized US citizen (1908)..."

[*Note that in 1904 Napier won a play-off with Atkins for the title of Britsh Champion.]