1862 was a year of the London World Exhibition. It was also the year of the 2^nd Internation Chess Tournament and, just as the Exhibition presented many novelties in the arts and sciences, the tournament presented it's own novelties in the chess arena.

There were 14 players in the tournament, to play each other round-robin (each player must play every other player) with time control of 20 moves in 2 hours with no adjournments. If a draw occurred, then they would continue playing games until one of them won. Time was measured with hourglasses.

This was the first tournament in which a timer had been used - at Blackburne's suggestion. However sand-clocks had been used in match play when Anderssen played Kolisch in 1861 with a time control of 24 moves in 2 hours.

St. George's Club was started in 1843 after the dissolution of the Westminster Chess Club. The new clug was located at Beatties Hotel on George Street in Cavendish Square. When Beattie's Hotel closed the next year, the St. George's moved to new quarters at the Polytechnic where the first International Chess Tournament was played 1851. In 1854, it moved into the Crockford house on James Street and finally, in 1857, it made it's way to 1 Palace Chambers, King Street, St. James where the 2^nd Internation Chess Tournament was partially played.

The St.James' Club had been in existance since 1770 and was located at at the Parsloes Hotel. John Jacob Lowenthal, the hungarian master, most noted for losing to 12 yr. old Paul Morphy, was the organizer of the 2^nd Internation Chess Tournament and had been president of the St. James's, Chess Club since 1857.

Public Chess Rooms — The Divan, at Simpson's Restaurant, 101 the Strand, was commonly referred to as Simpson's Divan. According to a website on English restaurants the Divan, ".... began life as The Grand Cigar Divan in 1828, introduced coffee and chess a few years later, and finally evolved into a restaurant in 1848 when John Simpson joined the company." It's original owner was Samuel Reiss who let Simpson, his headwaiter, buy into the venture. Today you can have an overpriced meal there surrounded by the ghosts of chess past as the walls are covered with photographs and cabinets hold boards and pieces dating back to 1828 used by such players as La Bourdannais, Staunton, Morphy, Anderssen, Steinitz, Zukertort (who had a stroke there while playing chess for a shilling and died the next day), Tarrasch, Tchigorin, Bird, Mason, Janowsky and Lasker.

When the tournament ended, Blackburne returned to Manchester to his job in a warehouse, but in his absence, he had been replaced. So, he did the only reasonable thing and turned chess professional.

While Steinitz began touring England giving simul demonstrations, Blackburne also toured England giving blindfold simul demonstrations. Blackbune's and Steinitz's paths crossed many times throughout their careers.

Blackburne played in the 1867 tournament in Dundee, Scotland, winning 4^th place behind behind Gustav Neumann, Wilhelm Steinitz and Cecil de Vere/George MacDonnell (tied for third). This tournament has an important historical aspect since it marked the first time in which draws were credited with 1/2 points, rather than replayed or ignored.

It was also in 1867 that Blackburne and Steinitz got into an altercation of which there some confusion about what happened.

According to Bill Wall, the scuffle resulted in little Steinitz spitting on Blackburne and Blackburne replying with a punch and throwing Steinitz through a first-story window.

Glenn Giffen, citing from The Even More Complete Chess Addict by Mike Fox and Richard James, states:

"On page 222, it says "the most notable bit of aggro in modern chess happened at a London club (Purssell's) in 1867. World champion Steinitz, a pretty irascible character at the best of times, fell out with the great English master Joseph Henry Blackburne (nicknamed The Black Death). The way Steinitz told it, Blackburne assaulted him, and gave him a black eye - so the world champion spat at him. Other versions have Steinitz spitting first and Blackburne knocking him through a window in retaliation. We shall never know. What we do know is that the same pugnacious pair were at it again in Paris some years later."

Mark Weeks, chess guide at http://chess.about.com/, adds:

"Landsberger [Kurt Landsberger, author of William Steinitz, Chess Champion: A Biography of the Bohemian Caesar and editor of The Steinitz Papers -SBC] quoting Steinitz : 'In Paris [1878], we occupied adjoining rooms at the same hotel, and I was already in bed undressed when [Blackburne] came home drunk and began to quarrel, and after a few words he pounced upon me and hammered at my face and eyes with fullest force about a dozen blows, until the bed cloth and nightshirt were covered with blood.'"

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Gustav Neumann was a very strong player, born in 1838, who rarely played in international tournaments. He was a friend of Adolf Anderssen, his primary opponent and sometimes consultant. He eventually suffered a mental breakdown and died in 1881.

John Wisker was the British champion in 1870 and 1872. He eventually moved to Australia and died in Melbourne of consumption/bronchitis in 1884. He also co-edited The City of London Chess Magazine, (published from February 1875 to January 1876) with William Norwood Potter (1840-1895)and London Field. He also wrote a novel, The Machinations of Detherby Yarke, which was published as a serial in the Federal Australasian of Melbourne.

The 1868-1869 British Chess Association Handicap was a multifaceted event that included a knockout handicap tournament, a blindfold event (which included both Steinitz and Blackburne as well as others), the Montgredien Tournament - seeming a type of chess variant and the and the Glowworm Cup (of which I can find no explanation). The main event was won by Steinitz, followed by John Wisker, then Blackburne.

Cecil Valentine De Vere was born Cecil Valentine Brown on St. Valentine's Day 1845. When he was about 14, he joined the City of London Club whose membership included Steinitz, Zuckertort, Bird, Blackburne, Boden, MacDonnell and Lowenthal. Even among these immortals, his natural talent was evident. He started frequenting Simpson’s Divan and drew a crowd everytime he played. The BCA (British Chess Association, 1861-1892) wanted to establish a British Championship and in 1866 set up a tournament, the Challenge Cup, to determine the first British Champion. This tournament became a biennial event. Cecil de Vere won the tournament, becoming the British Champion at age 21. He was already being referred to as the English Morphy.
He was invited to participate in the World Exposition Tournament of 1867 in Paris - the only British-born player so honored, playing against Sam Loyd, Steintitz, Kolisch, Neumann, Winawer, Rouseau, Riviere and other great players. He scored 5^th place. Later in 1867, de Vere played in the Dundee, Scotland tournament tying for 3^rd with the Rev. MacDonnell, just behind Neumann (1^st) and Steinitz (2^nd)
Shortly after the Paris tournament, de Vere was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He participated in Baden-Baden in 1870 and in the 4^th British Championship (won by John Wisker) in 1872, but the effects of his then-incurable disease were already apparent by then. He seemingly decided to live the remainder of his short life carefree and took to drinking heavily and spending his money freely. He took a job as a correspondant for The Field but after 15 months, he was replaced with Steintiz for his indolent lifestyle. Impoverished and deathly sick, de Vere was sent on a trip by his friends to Torquay, a coastal town on the English Riviera, in hope that the sea air would give him some respite. He died there on February 9, 1875, at 30 years old.

"He [Cecil de Vere] handled the pieces gracefully, never hovered over them, nor fiercely stamped them down upon the board, nor exulted when he gained a victory; in short, he was a highly chivalrous player." - Wilhelm Steinitz

For more details on his life and some of the strange mysteries surrounding him Click Here

The Baden-Baden tournament took place in 1870. This tournament had the distinct features of employing clocks, counting draws, of being Germany's first international tournament and of being limited to the strongest players in the world: Adolf Anderssen, Wilhelm Steinitz, Joseph Blackburne, Gustav Neumann, Cecil De Vere, Samuel Rosenthal (1837–1902 -the French Champion), Louis Paulsen, Szymon Abramovich Winawer (1838–1920), Johannes von Minckwitz (later, editor of Deutsche Schachzeitung, a German chess periodical) and Adolf Stern (because the Franco-Prussian war broke out, Stern, a Bavarian reservist, had to leave mid-tournament).

Blackburne tied with Neumann for 3^rd place, winning 200 francs. Anderssen took 1^st place, followed by Steinitz with 2^nd.

According to Jan Van Reek, "Those, who had ended their game, made afternoon excursions. During the evening they listened to the spa band and drank wine in a local cellar. One evening Blackburne, De Vere and Steinitz sang English tunes, strolled outside the city and encountered an alert German patrol. An international incident nearly occurred."

According to Bill Wall, "During the tournament, Blackburne was arrested for being a French spy. It was all a mistake. It turned out that Blackburne's carriage driver was the French spy."

In the London tournament of 1872, Blackburne came in 2^nd behind Steinitz (followed by Zukertort, Rev G.A.MacDonnell/Cecil de Vere, Wisker, Gossip, Martin. Draws were replayed.

Blackburne and Steinitz tied for first place, but Steinitz won the play-off. (followed by Adolf Anderssen, Samuel Rosenthal, Louis Paulsen/Henry Bird, Dr. Maximilian Fleissig¹/Philipp Meitner², Josef Heral, Adolf Schwarz/Oscar Gelbfuhs³ and Karl Pitschel).

It was in the tournament book to this event that Blackburne was referred to as The Black Death. In an odd coincidence, Vienna was plagued by cholera ⁴ from July to September of 1873.

¹ Max Fleissig was born 11/10/1845 in Csenger, Hungary. The Fleissig Gambit bears his name.
² Philipp Meitner practiced law and was considered a "freethinking humanist" whose home was a gathering place for legislators, writers, chess players and other lawyers. Most notably, he was the father of Lise Meitner, the famous woman physicist who coined the word fission.
³ Oscar Gelbfuhs was born 11/09/1852 in Sternberg, Czechoslovakia and died 09/27/1877 in Tesin, Czechoslovakia.
⁴ Besides the cholera outbreak during the 1873 Exposition in Vienna: there was a flood towards the end of the fair; the stock market crashed; neither, France, recently defeated in the Franco-Prussian war nor the United States, underestimating the importance of the Expo, had exhibits; the vendors charged exorbitant prices for goods and service. The result was that Vienna never hosted another world's fair.

An aquaintance of mine gave me this explanation of English currency:

The symbol 5/- is five shillings, there used to be 20 shillings to the British pound,
so this is 1/4 of a pound. As a pound is around $1.70 this equates to about 40¢.
The symbol d as in 3d refers to old pence, and there were 240 of these to the pound,
so 1d = approximately .7¢ so this amount would be about 2¢.
A guinea is even older, and was 1 pound and 1 shilling. So that would be about $1.80.

standing- Mackenzie, Englisch, Gifford, Winawer, Mason     sitting- Anderssen, Zukertort, Bird, Steinitz, Clerc

In 1878 Blackburne played Henry Bird in a match winning 5 - 2. He also took 3rd place In Paris 1878, there was another world's fair. According to Jan Van Reek, "The participation of Mackenzie and Mason made it the first intercontinental tournament in Europe." Blackburne took 3rd place in this tournament behind Zuckertort and Winawer. For more information concerning Szymon Abramowicz Winawer, see Tim Harding's excellent article.