West Wales Chess League

Travelling out into the chess wilderness that is places like Llandeilo, Llandybie, Ammanford, Gwaun-cae-gurwen and Brynamman one wonders how many talented players never had the opportunity to compete in a chess league or tournament because of the distance and expense involved. Particularly that would have been so in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Cwmamman shocked the West Wales chess scene by not only running a small club between 1934 and 1952, but actually winning the league and the South Wales Championship (combined with Gorseinon) in 1950. The only other club to compete in the league was Garnant between 1978 and 1982.

In the light of this it would not be surprising if anyone involved with Welsh chess has never heard of Dr. Richard Jones.

He was born in July 1859 in Gwter Fawr, later renamed Brynamman . His father, John Richard Jones, was a grocer and a member of the Pontardawe District Council. In Brynamman, Richard’s older brother, also J. R. Jones, was a member of the school board and, for a while, its chairman.

In 1915 Richard Jones was appointed chairman of the Llandeilo Urban District Council and a notice in the press mentioned that he had been living in Llandeilo for 19 years and had ‘a lucrative practice’ there. It continued:

In years gone by he was a clever chess player, and he still takes an interest in the game. He was also champion player of the Hastings Chess Club and played for the strongest teams in the United Kingdom, including Surrey and Sussex counties, and Ludeagle, the strongest team then in London League.”

In the 1880s it would appear that he went to Sussex and to London to train as a doctor.

The chess club at Hastings was founded in 1882 but Richard Jones was not a member at that time. The earliest mention of him is in a match between Hastings and Dover in December 1883. In autumn 1884 he won the 'Evens Tournment' in the club, which presumably was an event where there was no handicap. This tournament was used to decide who would be the club captain for the coming season. He finished ahead of two men who were later county champions, H. E. Dobell and H. F. Cheshire. He won the club championship in 1885 and again in 1889.

Jones did not play in the first ever Sussex county match away to Surrey, but did play in the return match in May 1884. That same year he is recorded as being Hastings club secretary.

Towards the end of 1888 he gave an 8-board simultaneous display at Hailsham chess club, winning 6 and with the other two unfinished but with favourable positions. In a report on this event he was said to be acting as a representative of the Sussex Chess Association. At this time he was living at The Dispensary in High Street, Hastings.

The last mention of his name in the Sussex area was at Easter 1889 when he played in a match against Brighton.

Richard Jones played on Board 9 for the Sussex County team in a 20-board correspondence match against Yorkshire n 1886. He also played on Board 5 for his county correspondence team against the Irish Chess Association which had been formed in 1885.

The doctor moved to Tumble in 1915, having bought a practice there, but continued to serve with the Llandeilo UDC and as a magistrate in the town. When he retired, he moved back to Upper Brynamman where he died at the age of 80. By the time that he moved to Tumble the Llanelli club was either defunct or not competing in events and by the time it resumed activities in 1928, Jones was approaching 70 years of age.

Notable Game from 1885

(Wormersley was shot dead in his office in September 1911 and the case was a memorable one for various reasons. The police officer who arrested the killer at the site of the murder, went into a police cell a week later and killed himself with the suspect’s revolver. The defence counsel was the man who successfully prosecuted Dr. Crippen.)

Sources

• Chess Notes Edward Winter
• Correspondence Chess in Britain and Ireland… Tim Harding
• Hastings & St. Leonards chess club records
• Research for Hastings club by Brian Denman
• Dr Tim Jones, grandson of Dr. Richard Jones, who plays chess for Hoylake and was himself a strong player.