Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton was born in April 1810. He was an English chess master, chess columnist, chess book author, and minor Shakespearean scholar. He is most remembered today for the style of chess figures that he endorsed, the "Staunton" pattern of chess pieces. The English opening (1. c4) was so named because he often used it in the period 1840-50.
Little is known about Staunton's life before he appeared on the chess scene. He said that he was born in Westmorland, was poor, and had no official education when he was young. He said he was an actor as a young man and 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 took a serious interest in chess when he reached the age of 26. In 1838, he played many games with Captain William Evans, inventor of the Evans Gambit. He also played and lost a match against the German chess writer Aaron Alexandre. In May of 1840, he began writing a chess column for the New Court Gazette that lasted until the end of the year. He had improved his play sufficiently enough by this time 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 led to his founding the chess magazine Chess Player's Chronicle in 1841. He edited the magazine until 1854 when he was succeeded by Robert Barnett Brien.
He played hundreds of games against John Cochrane in 1842. Cochrane was a strong player and Staunton had a good warm-up for what was to be his greatest chess achievement the following year. In 1843 he played a short match with Pierre St. Amant, who was France's champion and was visiting London. Staunton lost the match 3.5-2.5. Later, arrangements were made for a second match to be held in Paris. From November 14 to December 20, 1843, they played a match at the Cafe de la Regence, which Staunton won 13-8.
After St. Amant was defeated, no other French player arose to continue the tradition of French chess supremacy started by Philidor. London became the chess capital of the world and Staunton was now recognized as the world's strongest chess player. The next year he again went to Paris to play St. Amant, but he was suffering from severe pneumonia. It had damaged his health permanently and the match was cancelled. They never played again.
In 1845 Staunton began a chess column for the Illustrated London News that he continued for the rest of his life. According to The Oxford Companion to Chess, his column was the most influential chess column in the world. He played matches with lesser players at pawn and move odds, but played even with the masters Horwitz and Harrwitz in 1846, beating both in matches.
Staunton wrote his most famous work, The Chess-Player's Handbook, in 1847. It didn't go out of print until 1993. Another book, The Chess-Player's Companion followed in 1849. This same year, a chess set designed by Nathaniel Cook was registered and John Jaques obtained manufacturing rights. Staunton advertised the new set in his chess column in the Illustrated London News. Each set was sold with a pamphlet written by him, and he received a royalty on each set that was sold. The design was very attractive, became popular, and Staunton men have become the standard set for both professional and amateur chess players ever since.
In May of 1851, London was to host the Great Exhibition. London's thriving chess community felt obliged to do something similar for chess. Staunton took it upon himself to organized the world's first chess tournament that was 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 to showcase the world's technology and culture. He persuaded some of the chess amateurs in London and raised 500 pounds, which was a large sum of money at that time, to help host the event.
Although the London Chess Club refused to send anyone to enter the competition, the tournament was still a success. After a one month battle among 16 world class chess players, Staunton was knocked out of the battle for 1st place by the eventual winner, Adolf Anderssen. He was then beaten for the runner-up prize by his former pupil Elijah Williams. Clearly his 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, he had some fight left in him, as later that year he took revenge on Williams by beating him 6 wins to 4 with 1 draw, as well as crushing Karl Jaenisch in a match 7 wins to 2 with 1 draw. Also, the next year, he wrote a book about the 1851 London tournament entitled The Chess Tournament.
In 1853, Staunton travelled to Brussels to meet with Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa. They discussed the standardization of the rules of chess and played a short match. The Baron won the match with 5 wins, 4 losses, and 3 draws. By 1856, Staunton was beginning to withdraw from chess and turned to writing about Shakespeare as his main occupation. He secured a contract with a publisher to create an annotated edition of Shakespeare's works. Unfortunately, his ego wouldn't allow him to let go of his desire to be in the top ranks of chess mastery, but privately he must have known that the standard of play of the top masters was rapidly improving, while his was not. He played in a tournament in Birmingham in 1858 but didn't get far, as he was knocked out by Johann Lwenthal in 2 straight games.
This was to be Staunton's last public chess competition. He refused to play Paul Morphy in public when Morphy visited England in 1858, saying he was too busy working on his Shakespeare annotations. By 1860, his edition of Shakespeare had been published and he considered it a great work. However, modern day critics do not agree, and Staunton is an obscure name in modern Shakespearean scholarship. This same year he also published a book called Chess Praxis, which to take advantage of the public's desire for Morphy material had over 168 pages of Morphy's games annotated by Staunton.
In 1864 and 1865 he published many articles on Shakespeare. His final book was Great Schools of England published in 1865. On June 22, 1874, he was working on yet another chess book when he died at his desk in his library. His final book was published posthumously in 1876 under the editorship of R.B. Wormald and titled Chess: Theory and Practice. A memorial plaque now hangs at his old residence of 117 Lansdown Road, London W11. In 1997 a memorial stone bearing an engraving of a chess knight was raised to mark his grave at Kensal Green Cemetary in London. Prior to this, his grave had been unmarked.
Download 27 chess games by Howard Staunton
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