Jonathan Penrose OBE

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Ken Norman
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Ken Norman » Sun Feb 06, 2022 6:29 pm

Leonard Barden wrote:
Sat Feb 05, 2022 10:08 pm
Tim Harding wrote:
Sat Feb 05, 2022 8:57 pm
Penrose and his wife Margaret divorced at some point;
My information was that they separated in 1978, but did not divorce.
Dinah was informed by Elaine Pritchard that several years after the separation from Jonathan Penrose
Margaret Penrose re-married this time to a non Chessplayer.

Tim Harding
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Tim Harding » Tue Feb 08, 2022 8:13 pm

Ken Norman wrote:
Sun Feb 06, 2022 6:29 pm
Leonard Barden wrote:
Sat Feb 05, 2022 10:08 pm
Tim Harding wrote:
Sat Feb 05, 2022 8:57 pm
Penrose and his wife Margaret divorced at some point;
My information was that they separated in 1978, but did not divorce.
Dinah was informed by Elaine Pritchard that several years after the separation from Jonathan Penrose
Margaret Penrose re-married this time to a non Chessplayer.
Thanks for that, Ken. In my Chess Mail interview with Penrose I wrote they divorced but they "remained friendly".
No longer having the original notes I didn't like to contradict Leonard, but I don't think I would have said in the article that the Penroses divorced if Jonathan hadn't told me.
Tim Harding
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Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
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John Saunders
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by John Saunders » Fri Apr 08, 2022 5:52 pm

I happened upon a Penrose game given on 2022 Mega Database as follows (warning: do NOT add this version of the game to your databases - read on...)



... but they have the date and identity of Black wildly wrong.

Chessgames.com does a little better than ChessBase as they've probably worked out that Jamieson Pryor (a US player) couldn't have played a game of chess in 1980 as he wasn't born until 1985. :roll: But their version is still wrong (until they act upon my submitted correction - to be fair to them, they usually do this very quickly. So by the time you check, they might have fixed it.)

I first came across this game on page 90 of Leonard Barden's The Guardian Chess Book which was published in 1967, so that refutes the 1980 date. He credits it as "Penrose-W.E.B. Pryor, played in a county match some years ago."

So we have to look earlier to find a date. I thought I had done so, a year or so ago, when I found the pairing J. Penrose vs W.E.B. Pryer (note unusual but correct spelling of Black's surname) in a 1959 county match between Essex and Herts. A reasonable guess but it turns out I was wrong, too. I've just found the game score in the Staffordshire Advertiser for Friday 11 April 1952 in which it says "A curious brevity played at second board in a recent county match between Essex and Herts. White, J. Penrose Black W. E. B. Pryor [sic] Danish Gambit."

Whilst we still don't have a date for the game, it cannot have been played any later than April 1952. And Black was William Ernest Baker Pryer (1902-1993) whom older members of this forum might remember still playing in the 1970s. Here's a better version of the score which you can add to your databases...

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John Upham
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by John Upham » Fri Apr 08, 2022 8:14 pm

A nice find John. Thanks for posting this.
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Gerard Killoran
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Gerard Killoran » Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:28 pm

This isn't in Chessgames.



The Manchester Evening News - Tuesday 01 November 1949 - reported Penrose's victory in the above event, so possibly the game was played in October 1949.

A J. R. Stainton of London is mentioned in the West Sussex Gazette - Thursday 14 May 1953 - as winning the 1st class section at Bognor. (See also Britbase). From ancestry.com he is probably John R. Stainton.

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John Saunders
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by John Saunders » Mon Apr 11, 2022 2:21 am

Good find, Gerard. Dating the game will be a bit more inexact, however. The London Championship in the late 1940s was played as a preliminary knock-out, I think over the summer months and with players having to make arrangements with their opponents as to where and when, and only the final eight players coming together for a properly organised round-robin final with fixed dates. The finalists that year included Jonathan Penrose but not Stainton. Penrose won with 5½/7 ahead of 2-3 V Berger, G Wheatcroft 5, 4 B Reilly 4, 5 Dr PM List 3, 6-7 N Hammond, DG Mackay 2½, 8 A Primett ½. The finals were held at the Lud-Eagle club, 26 Bryanston Square, 24 September to 2 October 1949.

The London & Midland Chess Bulletin for 6 August 1949 (very good value at sixpence) reported that Penrose beat J. G. R. Stainton in preliminary round 3 and that round 4 (the last preliminary round) was to be completed by 30 August. An earlier edition of the same bulletin (dated 9 July) said that round 3 games had to be completed by 19 July. So we probably have to make do with an inexact date of July 1949.

The only viable candidate for Penrose's opponent is John Godrey R Stainton (1926-2006), who lived in Willesden and Kilburn around the right time. He was still turning out for Middlesex in the 1970s and we have the score of a game in which he drew with Dr Aitken in 1973, and I found him in the 2001/2 grading list when he was playing for Highcliffe.
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