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Howard Staunton
was an English chess master and the 11th unofficial world chess
champion from 1843-1851. He
was also a newspaper chess columnist, chess book author, and
minor Shakespearean scholar. His name is remembered most
today for the style of chess figures he endorsed, the
"Staunton" pattern of chess pieces.
Staunton was
born in Westmorland and his father's name was William. He
was poor and had no official education when he was young. He
said he was an actor as a young man, that he once played the
role of Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice and he had acted
with the famous English actor Edmund Kean.
Staunton was
apparently twenty-six years old when he began to take an
interest in chess. He said that at that time, he was a "rook
player". From age twenty-six
on, he began a serious pursuit of the game. In 1838 he
played many games with Captain William Evans, inventor of
the Evans Gambit. He also
played a match against the German chess writer Aaron Alexandre, losing.
In 1840 he began
writing, doing a chess column for the New Court Gazette from
May to the end of the year. He had improved sufficiently by
1840 to play and win a match with the German master Popert, which he won by a
single game. He also began writing for British Miscellany
which in 1841 led to his founding the chess magazine known
as the Chess Player's Chronicle. Staunton edited the
magazine until 1854, when he was succeeded by Robert Barnett
Brien.
In 1842 he played
hundreds of games with John Cochrane. Cochrane was a
strong player, and Staunton had a good warm-up for what
would be his greatest chess achievement the following year. In 1843, Staunton played a short match with France's
champion, Pierre Saint-Amant, who was
visiting London. Staunton lost the match 3.5-2.5, but
a rematch was arranged to played in Paris, France from November 14 to December 20, 1843.
The match was played at the Cafe de la Regence and Staunton
won decisively, 13-8. After Saint-Amant's
defeat, no other Frenchmen arose to continue the tradition
of French chess supremacy started with
Francois Philidor, and London
became the chess capital of the world.
Staunton was now
recognized as the world's strongest chess player. He went to
Paris the next year to again play Saint-Amant, but by
suffering from severe pneumonia, which had damaged his
health permanently, the match was cancelled at last. They
never played again.
In 1845 Staunton
began a chess column for the Illustrated London News, which
he continued the rest of his life. According to The Oxford
Companion to Chess, Staunton's column was the most
influential chess column in the world. On April 9th of
that year,
Staunton as the representative of London, won a telegraph
game (a variation of blindfold game with people in other
location) with a group of five to six people, which took
about eight hours to finish the game.
Staunton played
matches with lesser players at pawn and move odds now, but
played even with the masters Bernhard Horwitz and
Daniel Harrwitz in 1846,
beating each in matches.
In 1847 Staunton
wrote his most famous work, The Chess-Player's Handbook,
which didn't go out of print until 1993. Another book,
The
Chess-Player's Companion followed in 1849.
In 1849, a chess set
designed by Nathaniel Cook was
registered, and manufacturing rights obtained by John
Jacques. Staunton advertised the new set in his chess column in the
Illustrated London News. Each set was sold with a pamphlet
written by Staunton, and Staunton received a royalty on each
set sold. The design was very attractive, became popular,
and Staunton chessmen have become the standard set for both
professional and amateur chess players ever since.
In May 1851, London
was to be the host of the Great Exhibition, and
London's thriving chess community, the world's most active,
felt obliged to do something similar for chess. Staunton
then took it upon himself to organize the world's first
chess tournament, to be held in London along with the World
Industrial Great Exhibition. The idea was to invite the
world's leading masters to compete, and showcase chess the
way the Great Exhibition was showcasing the world's
technology and culture. He persuaded some of the chess
amateurs in London and raised fund up to 500 pounds which
was a large sum of money at that time to help to host the
event.
Although the chess
club of London refused to send anybody to enter the
competition, London 1851 was still a success, though Staunton
perhaps was disappointed, after a one month battle among
sixteen world class chess players, he was knocked out of the
battle for first place by the eventual winner,
Adolf Anderssen, then
beaten for the runner-up prize by his former pupil Elijah Williams. It is
clear that Staunton's best playing days were now over, but
his reputation as the world's leading chess authority was
bolstered among amateurs by his books and his self-promotion
in his chess columns. Still, Staunton had some fight left in
him, as later that year he took revenge on Williams by
beating him, six wins to four with one draw, as well as
crushing Karl Jaenisch in a match,
seven wins to two, with one draw.
By 1856 Staunton was
beginning to withdraw from chess and turn to writing. Unfortunately, Staunton's ego would not allow
him to let go of his desire to be in the top ranks of chess
mastery. Staunton entered the fray again by playing in a
tournament held in Birmingham in 1858, under the auspices of
the new British Chess Association. Staunton didn't get far,
being knocked out by Johann Löwenthal in two
straight games.
Staunton's last public chess competition
was at Birmingham in 1858. Staunton
refused to play Paul Morphy in public during the latter's
visit to England in 1858, saying he was too busy working on
his Shakespeare annotations. He went on to publish
many articles on Shakespeare in 1864 and 1865. His final
book was Great Schools of England published in
1865. He was working on yet another chess book, when his
life came to an end in 1874. He died at his desk in his
library.
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