Hampshire had been playing County chess since 1887 and the now defunct Hampshire Chess League commenced in 1895, but there was no Hampshire Individual Championship until 1930. There was discussion on holding this as early as the Hampshire Chess AGM in 1898. For additional details on its creation see the article on the Hampshire Chess Individual Championship Origin.
The very first Hampshire Chess Championship was held in 1930 with eight competitors playing in a knockout format. The main information for this article has been obtained from Frank Taylor’s documented history and any of the hand written scanned pictures are from this.
I have typed the scanned document below to make clearer. It seems that individual clubs held tournaments, from which the winner entered the Hampshire Championship, which is why for the first championship there was only one player per club.
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 Championship 1930
Clubs played preliminary tournaments and each club winner played in the final rounds as follows.
The winner of the tournament, FJH Elwell went on to win the Hampshire Championship another four times whilst another entrant SL Russell won in 1935. FJH Elwell was an extremely strong amateur player who represented Hampshire more than 100 times in County matches mainly on board two behind Joseph Blake.
He was also a member of Southampton Chess Club and won their club championship 13 times from 1921 to 1939. The Southampton Club’s website has 1921 as the first year their club championship was recorded but I have checked back on some of their AGM’s which were detailed in the Southampton Advertiser. From these he won the Southampton previous to 1921 e.g. 1915 and 1916 (the 1917 AGM mentions he had won previous two years).
Looking at other sources I have determined the clubs for all the players in the tournament.
Player
- HA Way
- RT Kimber
- SL Russell
- FJH Elwell
- Rev AR Witt
- FL Taylor
- Rev E Wells
- AS Dance
Club
- Portsmouth
- Tauntons School
- Broughton
- Southampton
- Winchester
- Old Tauntonians
- Bournemouth
- Andover
Frank Elwell’s semi-final win was reported in the Hampshire Advertiser – Saturday 26 April 1930. This stated that the Portsmouth player was HL Way in the other semi-final, but this is a typo and was actually HA Way.
Portsmouth’s HA Way was successful in the other semi-final and the final was played at Southsea. FJH Elwell had the advantage of the White pieces, but it looks as if HA Way gained an advantage playing the French defence. A win was missed by HA Way on his 45th move and the advantage switched to FJH Elwell. The game was adjourned on the 45th move and resumed the following week again at Portsmouth.
Although the position was level, HA Way soon won a pawn and it seemed he was on the way to winning, but after an early exchange of rooks Elwell defended well and a draw was agreed on the 84th move. Despite the long game a new one commenced although both players were evidently tired. Elwell’s resilience paid off and he soon won the 2nd game, although the reports state that this was not a stellar game.
As mentioned Frank Elwell went on to win the championship another four times, but you have to feel for HA Way as he never got this close again to winning the Hampshire Championship and if he found the correct moves in the first game he would have won the first Hampshire Individual Championship.
As per Frank Elwell Southampton championship record, HA Way was club champion of Portsmouth numerous times and at this time Southampton and Portsmouth chess clubs were the dominant ones in their regions.
Acknowledgements and sources:
- British Newspaper Archive
- Hampshire Telegraph
- Portsmouth News
- Southampton Advertiser