I am not even 100% sure that there was a Hampshire Chess Championship in 1949, as the Trophy has no inscription for this year. However with some digging through the minutes I now think that this did take place and that WJ Fry who won in 1933, 1939 and 1951 was also successful this year.
If additional information is located I will add to this article.
Picture above from dust cover of Reinfeld’s How to Play Chess and it seems that this picture is of WJ Fry.
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. Both of these are available from the menu at the top of the site as well.
Hampshire Chess Championship
The tournament would have taken place from late 1948 to mid 1949. The Council Minutes from 20th November 1948 detailed that entrants were allocated to three? (difficult to read) sections. One for Bournemouth, Southampton and District and another section.
As to the participants I have not been able to locate any, apart from the winner, but with three sections the assumption would be that these would have been similar to the last couple of years (between 10 and 14?).
Final Positions
As noted, there is very little information on the tournament, but the HCA AGM minutes of Oct 7 1950 states that the tournament was won by WJ Fry. if this is correct then this was this third win of the championship (1933 and 1939) and he would also win a final one in 1951.
Below is a picture of the Silver Rook plinth which details the winners of the tournament. As you can see there is no entry for 1949, but the information I have does seem to indicate that this is incorrect and that WJ Fry was the winner.
Games
No game from the championship, but I have found a few games by WJ Fry and have given one of his wins below with light annotations and his loss against S Tartakower from Southsea 1951
Summary
With so little information to go on there is not much I can say about the championship, but I have a bit more information on the winner, WJ Fry.
He first played in the Hampshire Individual Championship in 1932 and managed to win the title in 1933. He would go on to win it three more times, 1939, this year and 1951. He was a member of the Southampton Chess Club and won their championship 11 times between 1926 and 1954. He probably would have won it many more times if Frank Elwell was also not a Southampton Chess Club member and the 2nd World War when the competition was not held. Fry and Elwell dominated the club championship between 1921 and 1954 with only three other players winning the title once each.
For the County Chess Team he played more than 60 times between 1921 and 1950, mainly on the top four boards scoring over 58% for a fine record.
WJ Fry died on 29 October 1954 at the age of 58 as noted in Edward Winter Chess Notes Article. This also has the dust cover from Reinfeld’s How to Play Chess and it seems that this picture is of WJ Fry which is at the top of the article.
His obituary was in the British Chess Magazine in 1954 on page 382, but I do not have this, if anyone does please do let me know.