Staunton, H. – Williams, E. (1) 1851




Results
 
Name   Edo    Dev.   Score  /  Games 
Staunton, Howard    2606 (40) 7.5/13 
Williams, Elijah    2517 (39) 5.5/13 
 
Status: formal

Event table notes

Event data
Place: Cheshunt
Start date: 1851
End date: Nov. 1851
 
Notes:
The result reported here is, as usual, the result of games actually played. As reported by Staunton in The Chess Tournament, the Chess Player's Chronicle and the Illustrated London News, the rules of the match accorded Williams a 3-point advantage at the outset (and draws did not count), so that he won the match with 7 points to 6. Staunton's report in The Chess Tournament gives +6-4=1 (actually played), as do Sunnucks, Hooper and Whyld, Coles (in World Chess Champions), Giffen, Mark Weeks and Sarah's Chess Journal. Murray (in his obituary of Staunton in the British Chess Magazine, Dec. 1908), Sergeant, Feenstra Kuiper, Golombek, Di Felice, Spinrad, Carl Dunn and La Grande Storia degli Scacchi give +6-4=3. The latter is correct, since all 3 draws are given in Staunton's book of the International Tournament. I have guessed at the end date of Nov. 1851 from the date of the report in the Illustrated London News. Probably it started after the Löwenthal-Williams match, which finished in Oct. 1851. Townsend gives the location as Staunton's home in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire.
 
References
Books
   Di Felice, Chess Results, 1747-1900, page 14
   Féry d'Esclands, Congrès des Échecs 1867, page xxx
   Feenstra Kuiper, 100 Jahre Schachzweikämpfe, page 14
   Golombek, Golombek's Encyclopedia, page 343
   Harding, Eminent Victorian Chess Players, page 56
   Hooper and Whyld, Oxford Companion (1st ed.), page 326
   Sergeant, Century of British Chess, page 77
   Staunton, The Chess Tournament, page 377
   Sunnucks, Encyclopaedia of Chess, page 464
   Townsend, Notes on Staunton
Periodicals
   [BCR], vol. 1, no. 4, Apr. 1853, page 125
   [CP], vol. 1, no. 17, 8 Nov. 1851, page 134
   [CP], vol. 1, no. 20, 29 Nov. 1851, page 158
   [CPC], vol. 12, no. 12, Dec. 1851, page 362
   [CPC], vol. 4, no. 4, Apr. 1856, page 127
   [ILN], vol. 19, no. 530, 22 Nov. 1851, page 619
   [SZ], vol. 7, no. 7, July 1852, page 274
   [SZ], vol. 7, no. 9, Sep. 1852, page 335
Web
   Dunn, Carl.  [Ceremonies of the Horsemen 1(2): Elijah Williams of Bristol & London]
   Giffen, Glen.  [Events Timeline]
   Kingston, Taylor.  [Don't Bet the Farm or Scholar's Concern Tempers Stat-Freak's Delight], page 11
   Murray, H.J.R.  [Howard Staunton by H.J.R. Murray]
   Sarah.  [Howard Staunton]
   Sericano, C.  [I grandi matches 1850 - 1864]
   Spinrad, Jeremy P.  [Collected results, 1836-1863]
   Spinrad, Jeremy P.  [The Telegraph, the Velocipede, and the Bristol Sloth, Part Two], page 1
   Weeks, Mark.  [Howard Staunton's Tournament, Match and Exhibition Record]
   Winter, Edward.  [CN 7854. Demoralization]

Match information updated: 3 Jun. 2023