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Howard Staunton – England
Howard Staunton (April 1810–June 22, 1874) was an English chess master and unofficial World Chess Champion. He was also a newspaper chess columnist, chess book author, and minor Shakespearean scholar. His name is remembered most today for the style of chess figures he endorsed, the “Staunton” pattern of chess pieces.
Little is known about the life of Staunton before his appearance on the chess scene. He said he was born in Westmorland and his father’s name was William. He was poor and had no official education when he was young. He said he was an actor as a young man, that he once played the role of Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice and he had acted with the famous English actor Edmund Kean.
First steps in chess
It is documented that in 1836, Staunton was in London, and he made a subscription to William Walker’s book Games at Chess, actually played in London, by the late Alexander McDonnell Esq. Staunton was apparently twenty-six years old when he began to take an interest in the game. He said that at that time, he was a “rook player.”
From age twenty-six on, he began a serious pursuit of the game. In 1838 he played many games with Captain William Evans, inventor of the Evans Gambit. He also played a match against the German chess writer Aaron Alexandre, losing.
In 1840 he began writing, doing a chess column for the New Court Gazette from May to the end of the year. He had improved sufficiently by 1840 to play and win a match with the German master Popert, which he won by a single game. He also began writing for British Miscellany which in 1841 led to his founding the chess magazine known as the Chess Player’s Chronicle. Staunton edited the magazine until 1854, when he was succeeded by Robert Barnett Brien.
Match vs. St. Amant
In 1842 he played hundreds of games with John Cochrane. Cochrane was a strong player, and Staunton had a good warm-up for what was to be his greatest chess achievement the following year. In 1843, Staunton played a short match with France’s champion, Pierre St. Amant, who was visiting London. Staunton lost the match, 3.5-2.5, but later arrangements where made for a second match, to be held in Paris. Staunton went to Paris, where from November 14 to December 20, 1843, he played a match at the Cafe de la Regence against St. Amant, beating him decisively, 13-8. After St. Amant’s defeat, no other Frenchmen arose to continue the tradition of French chess supremacy started with Philidor, and London became the chess capital of the world. Staunton was unofficially recognised as the best player of the world from 1843 to 1851.
Staunton was now recognized as the world’s strongest chess player. He went to Paris the next year to again play St. Amant, but by suffering from severe pneumonia, which had damaged his health permanently, the match was cancelled at the last minute. They never played again.
Chess literary efforts
In 1845 Staunton began a chess column for the Illustrated London News, which he continued for the rest of his life. According to The Oxford Companion to Chess, Staunton’s column was the most influential chess column in the world. On the ninth of April, Staunton, as the representative of London, won a telegraph game (a variation of a blindfold game with people in other locations) with a group of five to six people, which took about eight hours to finish the game.
Staunton played matches with lesser players at pawn and move odds, but played even with the masters Horwitz and Harrwitz in 1846, beating each in matches.
In 1847 Staunton wrote his most famous work, The Chess-Player’s Handbook, which didn’t go out of print until 1993. Another book, The Chess-Player’s Companion followed in 1849.
Staunton pattern chess pieces
In 1849, a chess set designed by Nathaniel Cook was registered, and manufacturing rights obtained by John Jaques for his company Jaques of London. Staunton advertised the new set in his chess column in the Illustrated London News. Each set was sold with a pamphlet written by Staunton, and Staunton received a royalty on each set sold. The design was very attractive, became popular, and Staunton men have become the standard set for both professional and amateur chess players ever since.
London 1851 Tournament
In May 1851, London held host to the Great Exhibition, and London’s thriving chess community, the world’s most active, felt obliged to do something similar for chess. Staunton then took it upon himself to organise the world’s first chess tournament, to be held in London along with the World Industrial Great Exhibition. The idea was to invite the world’s leading masters to compete, and showcase chess the way the Great Exhibition was showcasing the world’s technology and culture. He persuaded some of the chess amateurs in London and raised funds of £500 – a large sum of money at that time – to help to host the event.
Although the chess club of London refused to send anybody to enter the competition, London 1851 was still a success, though Staunton perhaps was disappointed, after a month long battle among sixteen world class chess players, he was knocked out of the battle for first place by the eventual winner, Adolf Anderssen, then beaten for the runner-up prize by his former pupil Elijah Williams. It is clear that Staunton’s best playing days were now over, but his reputation as the world’s leading chess authority was bolstered among amateurs by his books and his self-promotion in his chess columns. Still, Staunton had some fight left in him, as later that year he took revenge on Williams by beating him, six wins to four with one draw, as well as crushing Karl Jaenisch in a match, seven wins to two, with one draw.
In 1852 Staunton wrote a book about London 1851 titled, The Chess Tournament. The title page to that book read, “By H. Staunton, Esq., author of The Handbook of Chess, Chess-players Companion, &c.&c.&c” to which in 1853 a fifteen or sixteen-year-old lad named Paul Morphy scribbled in his copy, “and some devilish bad games”. If Staunton was famous for his achievement as the best chess player in the world during the period 1843-1851, then after 1851 to his last days in 1874, he was most famous for his contribution in making England the capital of the chess world. In 1874 Morphy was more polite, and gave his estimate that Staunton’s best gift was not in playing chess, but as a theoretician and analyst. In some ways Staunton’s style presaged more modern methods; the English opening (1. c4) was so named because he often used it in the period 1840-50.
The American World Champion Robert Fischer, writing on Staunton more than a century later, had a much more flattering appraisal. “Playing over his games”, Fischer said, “I find they are completely modern.” So Staunton was actually well ahead of his time, playing in a style which would become known as the Hypermodern in the 1920s.
In 1853 Staunton made a trip to Brussels to meet with Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa. They discussed the standardization of the rules of chess, and played a short match, which ended in the baron’s favor, five wins to four with three draws.
Withdrawal from active chess playing
By 1856 Staunton was beginning to withdraw from chess and turned to writing about Shakespeare as his main occupation. He secured a contract with a publisher to create an annotated edition of the great bard’s works. Unfortunately, Staunton’s ego would not allow him to let go of his desire to be in the top ranks of chess mastery, but privately he must have sensed that the standard of play of the top masters was rapidly improving, and his was not. Staunton entered the fray again by playing in a tournament held in Birmingham in 1858, under the auspices of the new British Chess Association. Staunton didn’t get far, being knocked out by Johann Löwenthal in two straight games.
Birmingham 1858 was to be Staunton’s last public chess competition. Staunton refused to play Paul Morphy in public during the latter’s visit to England in 1858, saying he was too busy working on his Shakespeare annotations. This refusal apparently had a negative impact upon Morphy, out of all proportion to its real significance. Likely, Staunton, who was well past his peak as well as being out of practice, sized up the much younger (Morphy was 27 years younger) American’s stunning chess and concluded that he had virtually no chance against him, so why bother playing? Morphy took this as a nasty snub from one gentleman to another.
True to his word, Staunton now concentrated on writing on Shakespeare and chess. By 1860 his edition of Shakespeare had been published. Staunton considered it a great work, but modern day critics do not agree, and Staunton is an obscure name in modern Shakespearean scholarship. Staunton also published a book in 1860 titled Chess Praxis, which to take advantage of the public’s desire for Morphy material had over 168 pages of the American’s games annotated by Staunton.
Shakespearean scholar
Staunton published many articles on Shakespeare in 1864 and 1865. His final book was Great Schools of England published in 1865. He was working on yet another chess book, when his life came to an end at age 64. He died at his desk in his library. His final book was published posthumously in 1876 under the editorship of R.B. Wormald, and titled Chess: Theory and Practice.
A memorial plaque now hangs at his old residence of 117 Lansdowne Road, London W11. In 1997 a memorial stone bearing an engraving of a chess knight was raised to mark his grave at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. Prior to this his grave had been unmarked.
Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Staunton
