Hampshire County Matches 1923 / 24 - Hampshire Chess History

Hampshire only played the two County matches this season, losing heavily to Kent and a much closer match against Berkshire.

Hampshire v Kent 8 Dec 1923
Hampshire v Berkshire 9 Feb 1924
Summary
Acknowledgements and Sources

For the record of Hampshire County matches, and links to any articles I have written, the table on the Hampshire County Chess Matches page will detail these. The Hampshire County Chess History page summaries the leagues Hampshire have played in, and the successes Hampshire have achieved. Both of these are available from the menu at the top of the site as well.

Hampshire 3½ – Kent 12½ – Dec 8 1923 – London

Hampshire had not played Kent since 1911 when the lost by 3 points. This year the match was not close with a 9 points difference! Hampshire only had two winners, at either ends of the team, with Blake winning on board 1 and Whetham on board 16. With Hampshire normally suffering on the lower boards in their county matches LC Whetham had a surprisingly excellent record, with 8 wins, 3 draws and 3 losses, playing on board 11 to 16. These were played over 27 years, so it is likely that he was unable to play often.

The teams from the 1911 and 1924 matches were quite different, but Hampshire’s top two boards were the same. In addition, the the top board pairing was also the same in both matches (and the same result with Blake winning). The Hampshire Advertiser detailed the match, highlighting some of the issues Hampshire had with players not arriving on time, (not sure anything would have saved them from the drubbing though).

Match Between Hants and Kent
These counties met the Southern Counties Championship on Saturday at St. Brides Institute. London. E.C.. where also Middlesex and Lancashire were being concerned the final of the 1922-23 series

Hampshire were at serious disadvantage from the start, as at the scheduled hour for commencing Messrs. KS Barlow. JS Flower and HD Osborn had not arrived. Added to this Kent won the toss and elected to take the move on the odd numbered boards.

At Board 1 JH Blake for Hampshire gained an early advantage against OC Muller (Kent) and was one of the first to finish. FJH Elwell and RF Barlow were concerned in terrific struggles against JC Waterman and IT Sifton on Boards 2 and 3 respectively, which were ultimately adjudicated drawn.

A Hayes (Portsmouth). and HA Way (Portsmouth) had established winning positions on Boards 4 and 6. WJ Fry (Southampton), should have made much more capital out a very strong counter-attack, but missed his way.

HL Parsons a young student played a very creditable first game for Hampshire, and did well to halve with such a strong player as WH Powell. LC Whetham (Basingstoke) scored a convincing win against FJ Ritson. The remaining games although well contested went in favour of the victors. Kent:. Middlesex and Lancashire were six all when time was called, but Lancashire appear have strong advantages in the games submitted for adjudication. Hampshire meet Berkshire at Reading February 9th 1924.

Hampshire Advertiser – Saturday 15 December 1923

This was also the first County Match for HL Parsons (approx. age 19) who would continue to play for Hampshire for another 50 years and to also successfully captain the County team including in the 1969/70 season, where they won the SCCU Championship. I will add to the Obituary section, but below is what Peter Marshall wrote about Les Parsons in the January 1985 Westward Ho! no 13

DHH Wassell also returned to the team for the first time in 10 years. He would play for this season, and one game in 1924/25 but his return did not prove successful with 3 losses and it looks like he did not represent Hampshire again.

Board	Hampshire	Club	Result	Kent	Result
1	JH Blake	Southampton	1	OC Muller	0
2	FJH Elwell	Southampton	½	JC Waterman	½
3	RF Barlow	London	½	IT Sifton	½
4	Allan Hayes	Portsmouth	0	Evan Cresswell	1
5	AB Coe	Southampton	0	WB Dixon	1
6	HA Way	Portsmouth	0	WM Brooke	1
7	Revd W Proctor	London	0	Major WR Barnett	1
8	HD Osborn	Gosport	0	G Hanson	1
9	WJ Fry	Southampton	0	J Sargent	1
10	JS Flower	IOW	0	HB Hodges	1
11	FG Binning	Southampton	0	P Sullivan	1
12	E Clayton	Portsmouth	0	EA Coad-Pryor	1
13	DHH Wassell	Petersfield	0	RC Noel Johnson	1
14	RJ Haydon		0	FJ Dennis	1
15	HL Parsons	Southampton	½	WH Powell	½
16	LC Whetham	Basingstoke	1	FJ Ritson	0
	Total		3½	Total	12½

Hampshire 9 – Berkshire 10 – Feb 9th 1924 – Reading

Hampshire met Berkshire for the second time, and unlike the previous year the match was much closer. I am not sure why this was held over 19 boards, rather than the normal 16. Until this article all the records had this game as 9 – 9 with one adjourned game. The good news is I have found the result of the game, the bad news is that this went in Berkshire’s Favour. The even worse news is that the adjudicated position was included in the Reading Observer – Saturday 16 February 1924 and Stockfish gives the final position as a big fat 0.00!

In some ways I feel the original position of a drawn match is probably fair, but as this went in Berkshire’s favour the match result is a loss for Hampshire. Maybe I should not have looked too hard on this one to find the result of the adjourned game.

Hampshire winners were JH Blake, AB Coe, HA Way, Revd W Proctor, WJ Fry, AJ Woodford, LC Whetham and E Reynolds.

Board	Hampshire	Club	Result	Berks	Result
1	JH Blake	Southampton	1	FW Neale	0
2	FJH Elwell	Southampton	0	PJ Lawrence	1
3	Allan Hayes	Portsmouth	0	LA Rumble	1
4	AB Coe	Southampton	1	JH Van Meurs	0
5	HA Way	Portsmouth	1	WOC Stuchbery	0
6	HD Osborn	Gosport	0	EJ Brooks	1
7	Revd W Proctor	London	1	ER Farmer	0
8	WJ Fry	Southampton	1	GH Caws	0
9	EG Parsons	Andover	0	H Lyford	1
10	AH Yerbury	Basingstoke	0	H Runham	1
11	FG Binning	Southampton	0	GH Kingham	1
12	E Clayton	Portsmouth	½	SF Pierson	½
13	DHH Wassell	Petersfield	0	B Hamilton	1
14	AJ Woodford		1	W Innes	0
15	AS Dance	Andover	0	RG Gray	1
16	LC Whetham	Basingstoke	1	E Wicks	0
17	J Bradfield	Kingslclere	0	TH Cox	1
18	E Reynolds		1	A Mawle	0
19	HL Parsons	Taunton College	½	CG Greenfield	½
	Total		9	Total	10

The match result was detailed in the Reading Observer on the 16th February 1924 along with the adjourned position from the Elwell – Lawrence game.

Summary

Two losses from the two matches, meant this was not the best season for Hampshire on the over the board matches. Hampshire played additional Correspondence matches though, and won one and lost won (no score given). The win would have been in the team County Championship and the loss looks to be against Cumberland, although this is not that clear. If I find out more I will add.

1923 saw Sir George Thomas win the British Chess Championship which was held in Southsea. Hampshire board one also played, but finished in 11th place. Although Sir George Thomas did not represent Hampshire this year and would only play for them 4 more times, seeing a Hampshire player winning the championship must have been a great boost to local chess. As can be seen from the table both Hampshire players resided in London, but we count them as Hampshire players!

There is a lot more information on Britbase on the Championship.

1923 British Chess Championship - source Britbase — **1923 British Chess Championship – source Britbase**

I noticed the following Hampshire players in the some of the other sections. The Sectional tournaments were all-play all’s with 6 players in each one.

1st Week

HA Way – Sectional Tournament 2 – (2nd place)
JS West – Sectional Tournament 2 – (6th place)
A Hayes – Sectional Tournament 3 – (shared 2nd place)
HD Osborn – Sectional Tournament 5 – (3rd place)

2nd Week

HA Way – Premier Final A – (4th place)
A Hayes – Premier Final B – (shred 1st place with 3 others)
HD Osborn – Premier Final C – (3rd place)
JS West – Premier Final E – (1st place)

Section E
The local veteran, J. S. West [James Samuel West, 1852-1937], gained a very popular victory with a clean score. Watts, losing to Spencer-Palmer in the last round, had to share second prize with Wilkinson.

Britbase

General (Open) Section B – HA Way – 2nd (12 players)
General (Open) Section B – WH Pratten – shared 6th (12 players); Wilf would have been 15.
General (Open) Section C – HD Lloyd – 3rd (12 players)

The Hampsh ire Trop hy in the 1923/24 season was won by Bournemouth and Winchester won the league.

The Hampshire AGM was reported in great detail in the Hampshire Advertiser. This was the 35th annual general meeting for Hampshire. An award to previous Secretary and Treasurer HJ Penwill was made and planned matches in the Montague Cup against Dorset were set.