‘…most information about the past has never been recorded and most of the rest was evanescent…no account of the past can recover the past because the past was not an account but events, situations, etc. As the past has gone no account can ever be checked against it but only against other accounts….there is no proper history that, deep down, allows us to check all other accounts against it, there is no fundamentally correct text which other interpretations are just variations; variations are all there are…no matter how verifiable, how widely accepted or checkable, history remains inevitably a personal construct, the manifestation of the historian’s perspective as a narrative…the historians viewpoint and predilections will shape the choice of historical materials…’
K. Jenkins, Re-thinking History pg. 14
This concise summarization concerning the formation of our county association comes from the 1933 publication ‘Chess in Bedfordshire’ thus is consistent with it. You can find it here1. And although some mention of club matches are made in the following pages of Fulton’s publication, and their rather sporadic ad-hoc nature eluded to, it does not delve further into them, and does not discuss the historical significance they may, or may not, have had before our league established itself, and our own league was put into play. But I have already done that with a certain match in particular2. I do, however, have minor corrections to add. Since I wrote that post, I have more concrete evidence of Ward’s birthplace and baptism.
It is clearly documented in the footnote above that Major Harry Duhan of Bedford went on to become the champion of South Africa, which was reported in the British Chess Magazine that year (as linked above), his games are illustrated too (as shown above). More about his life can be found here3. This achievement is significant for our purposes because it exemplifies the first instance of a Bedfordshire based player achieving documented international success. Regarding the match in question, he suffered a 0-2 loss to Ward of Luton. But why was he beaten in both games? What did he losses tell us about his opponent?
Although we could begin with something trite like: Ward, who occasionally played for Luton, finished 3rd in the British Championships in 1905, second in 1908, then 3rd in 1909 as well as become the champion of the City of London chess club 6 times between 1902-1911, West London chess club in 1907 and champion of Middlesex in 1909 when it was the strongest county across our sceptred isle. -this antiquated approach simply won’t do4.
Yes the paragraph above is well corroborated but more importantly it is synchronic. Firstly, it is necessary to corroborate our own claims further and enter into discourse about them. I am not the only person to have written about William Ward. Author Richard James has done so too. You may find the links to his work here5. We are clearly in agreement that William Ward lived in and around Luton, where his family moved to, although where we differ is that author James gives a more compelling account of how transient his life was, it should also be noted that James does not show Ward did in fact play for Luton where as I have shown he did play at least twice, and in all probability, many undocumented times more since he was based outside the town for a small part of his life. Ward achieved almost all his success some years after in London. Prior to that there are pertinent questions to be answered, such as ‘How strong was Ward when he defeated Duhan in our league in 1896?’ This question is problematic because the ‘evidence’ pertaining to his ability then is rather depressing without gamescores. Yes two years’ later he did become joint champion of the S.C.C.U as James clearly illustrates. And we also have material we can utilize for narrative purposes to construct a strong argument as to why. If we embrace the entrusted EDO Historical Chess Rating site, which is generally considered reliable, then we can indeed find Mr. William Ward placed at number 131 in the world in 1896, with an estimated rating of 2315 and then in 1898 with an estimated rating of 2360, still keeping him ahead of future world champion Capablanca by some 56 rankings. In today’s market that would put him at FM level. His opponent, Harry Duhan (later to be known as Major Harry Duhan or Major Duhan) does not appear in the estimated ratings of that year but can be found for the years 1910-1912. How reliable this can be some 14-16 years after they played is difficult to be sure of but if you play through Duhan’s games in the link concerning a clash of future champions, they suggest to me he was not equipped to compete against someone of Ward’s caliber. Why do I say this? Because, as stated by historian and celebrated author Dr. Timothy Harding, there is evidence that in December 1897 he participated in the Yorkshire v City of London Chess Club match by telephone. This is significant for our purposes because the City of London Chess Club was the biggest in the country at the time, some of its members were world class. How could Ward represent the largest club in the country so soon if he was not already very strong? A group photo with him in it can be found below.
By 1900 Ward had established himself as a strong amateur in London and was selected for the Anglo-American cable matches. He was also invited to participate in the City of London Tournament, where a select few of the world’s best were pitted against some of the best amateurs on our shores6. Details of this can be found here 7. As you can see, Ward not only drew with Mason but beat Blackburne and finished above him in the tournament. The following year he was pushed up the team in the Anglo-American cable match from board 9 to board 7 and beat Frank Marshall too, making him the first documented Bedfordshire based player to beat world class opposition. His retrospective rating for 1901 was 2372, making him 86th in the world, placing him above future world champion Capablanca (2359).8. His draw against Mason and victories against Blackburne and Marshall can be found below. Only now can we see why Ward went on to nearly win the British Championship on more than one occasion before the decade was out! In 1904 he had an estimated rating of 2414 and was rated as 60th in the world, ahead of many more famous than him, such as Isidor Gunsberg, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, Karel Treybal, and Dawid Przepiórka.
‘A historical narrative is thus necessarily a mixture of adequately and inadequately explained events, a congeries of established and inferred facts, at once a representation that is an interpretation and an interpretation that passes for an explanation of the whole process mirrored in the narrative.’
Hayden White, Interpretation in History, pg. 1
The draw against Mason, City of London Club Invitational, April 20th 1900, Round 6
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Nf3 Nbd7 6.e3 O-O 7.Bd3…
… dxc4 8.Bxc4 Nb6 9.Bd3 Nbd5 10.O-O Nxc3 11.bxc3 Nd5 12.Bxe7
Qxe7 13.Qc2 g6 14.Rab1 b6 15.Rfe1 Bb7 16.e4 …
… Nf4 17.Re3 f6 18.Bc4 Kh8 19.Rbe1 e5 20.Bf1 g5 21.d5 Bc8 22.c4 …
… Bd7 23.Rd1 Qe8 24.Qb2 c5 25.Rb1 Rf7 26.Ne1 h5 27.g3 Ng6 28.f3 Qb8 29.Nd3 Qd6
30.Bg2 Rg8 31.Rf1 Rh7 32.Rf2 h4 33.g4 Ne7 34.h3 Nc8 35.Bf1 Qe7
36.Ne1 Nd6 37.Ra3 Ra8
38.Nc2 Rf7 39.Ne3 Rff8 40.Qc1 Rfb8 41.Rb2 Rb7 42.Qb1 Qd8 43.Ra6 Bc8 44.Nd1 Rab8 45.Nc3 Rc7 46.Ra3 Bd7 47.Rab3 Qe8 48.Qc2 Kg7 49.Ra3 Qe7 50.Nb1 Qe8 51.Nd2 Rd8 1/2-1/2
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=17169688
Ward v Blackburne City of London Club Invitational, April 26th 1900, Round 9
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 c5 4.e3 cxd4 5.Bxc4 Nc6 6.exd4 e6
7.O-O Nf6 8.Nc3 Be7
9.Ne2 O-O 10.Be3 Qa5 11.Ng3 Rd8 12.Qe2 a6
13.a3 Nd5 14.Rfd1 Nxe3 15.Qxe3 Qb6 16.Rd2 Bf6 17.Rad1 g6
18.Ne4 Bg7 19.b4 Ne7
20.Nc5 Nd5 21.Bxd5 exd5 22.Re1 a5 23.Rde2
axb4 24.axb4 Bg4 25.Qc3 Bxf3 26.gxf3 Rac8 27.Qd2 Bf8 28.Kg2
Rb8 29.Re5 Qf6 30.Qa2 Qc6 31.Qb3 Bg7 32.b5 Qb6 33.Rxd5 Bxd4
34.Nd7 Rxd7 35.Rxd7 Qf6 36.Qd5 Bc3 37.Ree7 Rf8 38.Rxb7 Qf4
39.b6 h5 40.Re4 Qf6 41.Ree7 Bb4 42.Red7 h4 43.h3 Be1 44.Rxf7
Rxf7 45.Qxf7+ Qxf7 46.Rxf7 1-0
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1029429
Marshall v Ward, 6th Anglo-American Cable Match, April 19th 1901
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Nf3 Nbd7 6.c5 …
… c6 7.e3 e5 8.dxe5 Ne4 9.Bxe7 Qxe7 10.Nxe4 dxe4 11.Nd2 Nxc5 12.Nc4 O-O 13.Qd6 Re8 14.O-O-O Be6 15.Qxe7 Rxe7 16.b4 Na4 17.Rd4 Bd5
18.Nd6 Bxa2 19.Bc4 Bxc4 20.Rxc4 Nb6 21.Rxe4 Nd5 22.Kb2 b5 23.Rc1 Rc7 24.Rd4 Ne7 25.Nxb5 Rb7 26.Nd6 Rb6 27.Kc2 Rab8 28.Kd1 a6 29.Ra1 Nd5 30.Nc4 Rxb4 31.Rxa6 Nc3+ 32.Kc2 …
32. … c5 33.Rh4 Nd5 34.Rc6 R4b5 35.Kd2 Ne7 36.Rc7 R8b7 37.Rxb7 Rxb7 38.Ke2 Rb4 39.Kf3 …
the game. A bad blunder.
39. … Ng6 40.Re4 Rxc4 41.e6 Rxe4 42.exf7+ Kxf7 43.Kxe4 Ke6 44.f4 Ne7 45.g4 Nd5 46.f5+ Kd6 47.g5 c4 48.f6 gxf6 49.gxf6 Nxf6+ 50.Kd4 Ng4 51.Kxc4 Ke5 52.Kd3 Nxh2 53.Ke2 Ke4 54.Kf2 Ng4+ 55.Kg3 Nxe3 56.Kh4 Kf5 57.Kh5 Nd5 58.Kh4 Nf4 59.Kg3 Kg5 60.Kf3 h5 61.Kg3 h4+ 0-1
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1094493
‘It is dates, he (Claude Levi-Strauss) says, which justify the historian’s search for “temporal relationships” and sanction the conceptualization of events in terms of “the relation of before and after.’ Hayden White, Interpretation in History, pg. 289
My dear fellow countymen, to continue with Levi-Strauss, ‘history is never history…but history-for’. For our purposes, I have constructed a narrative which shows William Ward played chess in Bedfordshire in his early years and had multiple successes thereafter in London. He was the first to encounter and beat world class opposition, or masters as they were known back then, shortly after his time in Bedfordshire. Although Ward’s most noted achievements came nine years and more after he left our county, I have chosen to focus on his performances before as they give us a clearer indication of his ability around the time he left our county.
- https://mccreadyandchess.co.uk/2015/09/09/chess-in-bedfordshire/ ↩︎
- https://mccreadyandchess.co.uk/2016/02/12/our-clash-of-future-champions/ ↩︎
- https://durbanchessclub.co.za/duhan.html ↩︎
- I am not some forlorn devotee of Leopold Ranke who wishes to bang on about ‘the facts, the facts, the facts’ so I can tell it ‘the way it really was’. It’s not the 1860s anymore, it is presently 2023, and we have already encountered Hegel, Droysen, Nietzsche, and Croce to name but a few who revolted against the movement Ranke once found himself at the centre of. As Camus once said ‘Purely historical thought is nihilistic’. ↩︎
- https://britishchessnews.com/2022/06/17/minor-pieces-34-william-ward-part-1/ , https://britishchessnews.com/2022/06/29/minor-pieces-35-william-ward-part-2/ , https://britishchessnews.com/2022/07/05/minor-pieces-36-william-ward-part-3/ ↩︎
- One of them – Rudolf Loman – was Dutch but lived in London until 1914 ↩︎
- https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1026101 ↩︎
- http://www.edochess.ca/years/y1901.html ↩︎
McCreadyandChess 