The first Hampshire Chess Championship after the 2nd World War was held in 1947. Unfortunately there is no mention in the British Newspaper Archives on the tournament. The normal newspapers where details are found are a bit hit and miss in this period, which is a shame.
If additional information is located I will add to the article, but this post will rely on the Hampshire Chess Archives (mainly the minutes from the AGM and Council meetings) and the Wilf Pratten games which were supplied by Arthur Brameld / Roger Paige which have a couple from the tournament.
Picture above of Wilf Pratten is from Chessbase.
For a list of the winners of the Hampshire Individual Championship and links to any articles I have written the table on the Hampshire Individual Championship is the best place to look. In addition, the table on the Hampshire Tournaments will detail these and any other tournament articles I have completed. In addition, both of these are available from the menu at the top of the site.
Hampshire Chess Championship
The Hampshire Chess Council minutes for the meeting on the 26th October 1946 (part of the F.Taylor scanned documents) stated that the council had accepted the applications of the following players. At this time players had to request or be invited to enter the tournament.
Trying to determine the strength of the players at this time is difficult, but one way is checking the County results for the board position played. As a minimum this would help to know if these players were the top ones in Hampshire. I have completed this exercise for these players and with the exception of Dr Landstein and AC Barton (note 1) they all played for Hampshire in this period.
I have added their average county position for this period next to the names to give an indication; but my view is that with a couple of exceptions these were the strongest players in Hampshire at this time.
- JA Barrett (County bd 11 avg)
- AC Barton
- DH Butler (bd 13)
- AS Dance (bd 14)
- WJ Fry (bd 1)
- RS Learmouth (bd 17)
- HHR Northover (bd 14)
- WH Pratten (bd 2)
- SL Russell (bd 12)
- PA Ursell (bd 3)
- LE Vine (bd 6)
- TH Bumpus (bd 5)
- Dr Landstein
- H Grover (bd 10)
With this in mind the favourites going into the competition would look to be WJ Fry, WH Pratten, PA Ursell, TH Bumpus and LE Vine.
With fourteen players my assumption is that the Championship would have been split into three sections with the winner of each section meeting in a double round final. This is similar to how the 1948 tournament was held, although that only had ten players. The tournament was run during the year, which can be seen from the two included games, as one was played in November 1946 and one in May 1947.
It is worth taking a minute to think of the challenges following the 2nd World War and with players able to start playing in the Hampshire Chess Championship this is a good sign that chess activity was returning to normal. The Hampshire County team had their first match since 1939 in January 1946 against Berkshire (6½ – 5½ win), and the Hampshire Chess League resumed for the 1946 / 47 season (it may have actually been 1945 / 46?)
Final Positions
As noted, there is scant information on the tournament, but the Council Meeting of 20th September 1947 stated that WH Pratten had won the County Championship and PA Ursell (Bournemouth) was runner up. If I locate any additional information I will update this article.
It may be that some of the Dorset readers can confirm if the runner up and 1956 Champion PA Ursell is related to the current Ursell’s who play in the Bournemouth and Southampton Chess Leagues?
The Silver Rook plinth detailing the 1940 winners of the Hampshire Championship. Although there is no entry for 1949 I think it may have actually taken place and was won by WJ Fry.
Games
I have two games from the Wilf Pratten database from the Championship which I have lightly annotated below. First a win against the 1952 champion Squadron Leader Leslie Vine who played for Hampshire from 1936 to 1972. Prior to this he played against Hampshire, representing Cornwall in 1925 and 1932 (if the same player?).
The second game is against AS Dance, who was a regular participant in the Championships, as well as playing for the County team from 1921 to 1950. He played for Andover Chess Club in the Hampshire League.
Summary
This was Wilf Pratten’s first of four wins of the Hampshire Individual Championship. An extremely strong amateur who was British Boy’s champion on 1924 and 1925. He was very active in the Portsmouth Chess scene, as a player and organiser.
A number of the other players were either previous or future Hampshire Chess Champions, so this was not an easy championship to win.
- SL Russell – 1935
- WJ Fry – 1933, 1939, 1949 & 1951
- LE Vine – 1952
- PA Ursell – 1956
- AC Barton – 1968
Acknowledgements and sources:
- Britbase – Wilf Pratten information
- Roger Paige / Arthur Brameld for Wilf Pratten games
Note
Note 1 – There is an AC Barton who played for Hampshire from 1958 to 1990 but this may not be the same player. This would have been the same player, as AC Barton was born in 1919 and won the championship in 1968.
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