Twice British Champion : Remembering Reginald Broadbent (03-viii-1906 29-x-1988)

[John Upham]

Twice British Champion : Remembering Reginald Broadbent (03-viii-1906 29-x-1988)

His profession was recorded as "Telephone Traffic Superintendent, Class II, Post Office Telephones". If anyone can shed light on what this actually means I would be most grateful.

Anyway,

See https://britishchessnews.com/2020/10/29 ... 29-x-1988/

Almost no photographs of RJB appear to have survived (unless you know differently)

Reginald Broadbent (03-viii-1906 29-x-1988)

25734.jpg (68.93 KiB) Viewed 1655 times

[Kevin Thurlow]

He reached the rank of "Assistant Secretary", (used to be Grade 5), which is very senior, (not someone who makes tea for the typist). See

https://www.civilservant.org.uk/informa ... roles.html

Sir Humphrey explained it in "Yes, Minister"...

"Well briefly, sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private Secretary. I too have a Principal Private Secretary and he is the Principal Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, 87 Under Secretaries and 219 Assistant Secretaries. Directly responsible to the Principal Private Secretaries are plain Private Secretaries, and the Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary."

In the context of my ex-department, the Head of the "Laboratory of the Government Chemist" ("The Government Chemist") was a Band 3, his Deputy was a Band 5. They had nice offices, and didn't do any chemistry, but might have done in their youth.

[Ian Thompson]

He reached the rank of "Assistant Secretary", (used to be Grade 5), which is very senior, (not someone who makes tea for the typist).

... or, in a rough comparison with the Armed Forces, for important things like the mess you were allowed to use, the class of travel you were entitled to and the standard of hotel you were allowed to stay in, it was the equivalent of a brigadier or (air) commodore.

[Geoff Chandler]

A picture of a 'Broadbent Knight' I have no idea what this about. I picked it up from a link at chessgames.com



Picture here of RJB from the Battersea Chess Club Frank Parr Obit.
https://www.batterseachessclub.org.uk/f ... -obituary/


Their caption reads
Front row, left to right: R.G. Wade, F. Parr, W. Winter, R.F. Combe, C.H.O’D. Alexander, H. Golombek, G. Abrahams
Behind: G. Wood, R.J. Broadbent,

And from Edward Wintersite https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter39.html

[John Upham]

And from Edward Wintersite https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter39.html

Geoff,

You are treading on eggshells by reproducing one of EGWs scans. EGW believes he can copyright a scan of a pre-existing image and call it his own.

May the wrath of OGU await you...

I've been admonished and slapped-down in the Twittersphere for such actions.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi John,

Always thought it was OK as long as we acknowledge E.W's site (I gave a link) making no profit and it's not rare.

Years ago when first starting The Corner I used a picture of Janowski (seems me and EW have a soft spot for this great player)
and got a polite email (I'm not being sarcastic) asking me to acknowledge which I promptly did.
Think if someone nicks something without permission for profit then he has every right to complain . Here I think we are OK.

Guess we will soon find out.

(Carl/Jack if there is any come back then it's done in good faith. )

Anybody know what the picture of the Knights is all about. I got it from here.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/kibitzi ... 4&reply=12

[John Clarke]

His profession was recorded as "Telephone Traffic Superintendent, Class II, Post Office Telephones". If anyone can shed light on what this actually means I would be most grateful.

This would have been a middle-management type of position (my father was one). About equivalent to HEO in the regular Civil Service, I think, although I can't seem to find much information on-line about historic GPO grades. Stephen Mann's biography has Broadbent reaching that level in his early thirties, which seems about right for someone with the potential to go several grades higher. Traffic, by the way, was the title of the GPO Telecommunications in-house journal. Every month Dad would bring home the latest copy and add it virtually unread to the growing pile on the sideboard, to my mother's mounting exasperation.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"About equivalent to HEO in the regular Civil Service, I think, although I can't seem to find much information on-line about historic GPO grades. Stephen Mann's biography has Broadbent reaching that level in his early thirties, which seems about right for someone with the potential to go several grades higher."

He would then have to go SEO, Principal (Grade 7), Senior Principal (Grade 6), then (Grade 5), so possibly it was nearer SEO? Of course, occasionally highly-thought-of people, went up two grades at once ("jump promotion").

(Note HEO = Higher Executive Officer, SEO = Senior Executive Officer)

The trouble is the grades varied between different parts of Civil Service (and related bodies) and titles kept changing.

[Mike Alderson]

Geoff - it's the Camaratta codex, one method of classifying the evolving styles of knights produced by Jaques of London in the earlier years of Staunton pattern chess sets.

[John Upham]

Geoff - it's the Camaratta codex, one method of classifying the evolving styles of knights produced by Jaques of London in the earlier years of Staunton pattern chess sets.

See https://chessantiques.com/product-tag/camaratta-codex/

[Geoff Chandler]

Thanks lads,

I had honestly never heard of it. Also found this about Frank Camaratta

https://www.officialstaunton.com/pages/ ... he-maestro

If Reggie Broadbent has a Knight design named after him do you think I might a pawn named after me.

The Chandler Pawn (it disappears from the board after 5 moves.)

[John Upham]

The Chandler Pawn (it disappears from the board after 5 moves.)

Might there be an antipodean version?