Hampshire played 3 OTB and 3 Correspondence matches this season. They managed to reach the final of the Montague Jones Cup, but Cambridgeshire proved too strong. A new president was voted in at the AGM and this was John Spedan Lewis, known as the founder of John Lewis.

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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.

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Hampshire 11 – Somerset 5 – 7th Dec 1935 – Westbury

Hampshire’s met Somerset in the 2nd round of the Montague Jones Cup (they had a bye in the first round). Somerset meanwhile had played and beaten Wiltshire in the first round.

The report is the Bath Chronicle mentioned that the match was closer than the 11-5 result, although as this was from a Somerset newspaper you could take this with a pinch of salt.

Hampshire were comfortable winners on the top boards, with a surprising number of draws from board 8 to 15. The only Hampshire loser was their Secretary FL Taylor. Hampshire were led by CHOD Alexander, and the impressive team also included FJH Elwell, WJ Fry and Wilf Pratten. These players all won their games along, with HA Way, HD Lloyd and HL Parsons.

Hampshire’s strength can be seen as AB Coe was on board 11, although he did play on board 6 in the two other matches, so there may be a reason for this one off occurrence of playing on a low board.

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Hampshire 9 – Gloucestershire 7 – 1st February 1936 – Warminster

Hampshire were paired against Gloucestershire in the semi-final of the Montague Jones Cup, and the Western Daily Press stated that the Hampshire’s team were fielding the strongest team they had ever assembled. Not sure if this was correct, but it was certainly an impressive team. The Gloucestershire team were also very useful, and Hampshire only won by two points.

In addition to the 16 boards which counted towards the match, four friendlies were also played, which Hampshire won three of.

The Hampshire Advertiser had the game from the Hampshire President CF Chapman. “The President of the Hampshire Association is no mean exponent of the game, and this is a clever example of positional play.” was the comment in the paper. As well as positional play I would say he had a keen eye for tactics, with a couple of key moves such as 11Nxf6+ and the probable end with 19 Rxh7+.

CF Chapman only played for Hampshire between 1931 and 1936 on boards 4 to 9, with six wins, draws and losses in his 18 games.

Below is the obituary of CF Chapman on page 185 of the June 1949 BCM via Edward Winter.

C.F. Chapman obituary

C.F. Chapman died at Bournemouth on 23 April at the age of 84. He will be remembered as a Past President of Dorset C.A. and Hampshire Chess Association, and a Vice-President of Sussex.

At different times he held the championship of the Brighton, Bournemouth, Parkstone, Eastbourne, Chichester and Isle of Wight clubs; but perhaps he will be best remembered for his work in introducing chess to Parkhurst Prison during his sojourn in the Isle of Wight. This was well written up in the book on prison life Walls Have Ears – F.L.T. (Walls Have Mouths)

June 1949 BCM

For those who are interested you can get a copy of this book for under £10 on Abe Books.

Hampshire winners were CHOD Alexander, WH Pratten, AB Coe, HD Lloyd, CF Chapman, AS Dance, WA Way, FL Taylor, HL Parsons, W James and FB Allen.

Board	Hampshire	Colour	Result	Gloucestershire	Colour	Result
1	CHOD Alexander	White	1	C Sullivan	Black	0
2	FJH Elwell	Black	0	HM Cuttle	White	1
3	WJ Fry	White	0	C Welch	Black	1
4	WH Pratten	Black	1	HD Wells	White	0
5	HA Way	White	½	HP Parsbo	Black	½
6	AB Coe	Black	1	FF Finch	White	0
7	HD Lloyd	White	1	GW Powell	Black	0
8	SL Russell	Black	0	HJ Chapman	White	1
9	CF Chapman	White	1	AC Steadman	Black	0
10	H Grover	Black	0	HH Johnson	White	1
11	AS Dance	White	1	H Mann	Black	0
12	WA Way	Black	1	AJ Nutt	White	0
13	FL Taylor	White	1	CB Pepler	Black	0
14	JW Webster	Black	½	GPL Hudson	White	½
15	AH Yerbury	White	0	TC Johnstone	Black	1
16	WJ Turner	Black	0	Mansell Davies	White	1
17	Revd WL Freer	White	0	ASL Smith	Black	1
18	HL Parsons	Black	1	RO Wickham	White	0
19	W James	White	1	OJ Smith	Black	0
20	FB Allen	Black	1	AP Keen	White	0
	Total (4 friendlies)		12			8
	Total (top 16)		9			7

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Hampshire 5 – Cambridgeshire 11 – 14th March 1936 – London

Hampshire met Cambridgeshire in the final on the Montague Jones Cup. This was the same opponents that they met and lost to in the final of the Stevenson Cup the previous season. Hampshire’s team was much stronger than that team, with four previous or future Hampshire Individual Champions and CHOD Alexander on board one.

Unfortunately, Cambridgeshire were even stronger and Hampshire’s wins were few and far between in their 11 – 5 defeat. These winners were GP Britton and H Grover, and Hampshire must have been frustrated only picking up half a point on the top 6 boards.

The report in the Hampshire Advertiser before the match was upbeat, but afterwards were quite shocked by the result.

It was good to see FA Joyce back playing for Hampshire, which was the first time since 1930 (he first played in 1888). This was his last match for Hampshire though, although there was a F Joyce who played in 1951 and I wonder if that was a relative. As an aside whilst researching the match there was another Joyce in Winchester that week; although I am sure no relation, and his assertations of there being no war with Germany did not age well. This was the infamous Lord Hee-Haw. But this looks to be a warning as to what to take as fact, and to be very wary of people’s assertations that everything is fine!

Cambridgeshire would lose heavily to Middlesex in the final of the Southern Counties Championship 12 -4, so maybe Hampshire’s defeat was not the worst result!

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Summary

Hampshire had two good wins before losing heavily to Cambridgeshire in the final of the Montague Jones Cup, but were certainly able to field a strong team in each of their matches, which was a good sign for the future.

Hampshire played three County Correspondence matches, finishing 13th scoring 14½ points from 30 games in the County Championship. The title was shared by Middlesex and Cambridge. In the other two matches they beat Northamptonshire 14½ – 15½ (this almost looks like a B team match) and Greenook Telegraph 17½ – 13½ Board details for the majority of the games in all three matches are in the FA Taylor document.

In the Hampshire league Portsmouth proved dominant winning both Division One and Division Two (although they scored the same amount of points as Bournemouth Surburban and Broughton).

The British Chess Championship was won by ex Hampshire player William Winter, with Sir George Thomas 2nd. CHOD Alexander did not play in the Championship, probably due to his work commitments.

Frank Elwell was the winner of the HCA Individual Championship although this was after a 3 match play-off against Wilf Pratten. Wilf was 28 at the time, whilst Frank was 66 (I probably should be calling him Francis, rather than Frank!).

The 47th HCA AGM was reported in the Hampshire Advertiser advising on the various Hampshire chess activities. This also advised on CF Chapman stepping down as President and John Spedan Lewis being voted in as his replacement. There was also an announcement on a new tournament for players who were not playing in the Hampshire Individual. I have not looked ahead and it will be interesting to see if this materialised.

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The Hon. Secretary and Tresurer HCA officers remained unchanged:

• John Spedan Lewis – President
• FL Taylor – Hon. Secretary and Treasurer
• FJH Elwell – Match Captain
• FJH Elwell, HW Benest – Hon. Auditors
• HL Parsons, FL Taylor & AB Coe – SCCU Delegates

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Acknowledgements and Sources

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