Early Oxford University chess history (1810–1872)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article traces the origins of chess activity at Oxford University between 1810 and 1872, based on research into new historical documents, all available historical sources and detailed research into the earliest chess magazines, chess columns and journals of the period. The paper gives a brief history of the first chess club at Brasenose College in 1810 and the subsequent period up to 1846. The following section outlines, on the basis of previously unknown information, the origins and activities of the Oxford Hermes Club (1847) until its demise sometime in the mid-1850s, followed by a description of the decline of Oxford chess activities in the late 1850s and early 1860s. The article concludes with an analysis of the formation of the new Oxford University Chess Club in 1869 and its chess activities until the introduction of inter-university matches with Cambridge in 1873, after which a new chapter in university chess history began.