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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
3 November 2026
The international tournament at Hastings in the summer of 1895 was one of the most important chess events of the nineteenth century. The field of 22 included most of the top players in the world and only two players (Samuel Tinsley of England and Beniamino Vergani of Italy) who did not really belong in the company of great masters.
This was the first of the long series of chess tournaments played in the Sussex coastal resort of Hastings. It came about through the initiative of the local chess club with the support of the great master Joseph Henry Blackburne, who was a resident at that time, and of Leopold Hoffer, the leading chess journalist who had extensive contacts throughout the chess world.
Unfortunately there is a major issue with the documentation of the event although this is perhaps not widely realised. In fact none of the sources (including the four tournament books) or databases covering the event is entirely reliable. This series of articles, which we have been working on for a long period, will examine the evidence.
Our series of articles has been released gradually over a period of weeks starting in October and should be completed this week.
Feedback from readers to Tim's email address (or on the English Chess Forum) is welcomed but we may not have time to answer individual queries.
We shall eventually, once the series is completed, post a PGN file of what we believe is the most accurate database of the tournament. That will probably happen in late November as we are about to take a holiday and want to read all the feedback first in case we are persuaded to change our mind on any of the issues.
Next year we hope to check more sources in the British Librray and Royal Dutch Library, so there may be some edits to the series in future.
The articles so far posted are:
Round 1 (NB: amended version)
Rounds 4 and 5 (no problem games, no article)
Round 16 (no problem games but we report on the standings at this stage of the event.)
A short concluding article should follow soon.
If any readers have feedback, please email them to Tim or post them in the History section of the English Chess Forum, preferably by the 15th of November.
We shall then review everything after our holiday and perhaps revise or expand the conclusion, while preparing a PGN database file for download which we hope will be more reliable than any that is currently available.