London, England 1866 (1)




Results
 
Crosstable scores
Name   Edo    Dev.   Score  /  Games   
de Vere, Cecil    2609 (43) 9 /
MacDonnell, George    2503 (49) 3.5 /
Minchin, James    2308 (67) 6.5 / 14 
Bird, Henry    2479 (46) 1 /
Trelawny, John    1914 (99) 0 /
 
 

Event table notes

Event data
Name: 1st British Chess Association Challenge Cup
Place: London, England
Start date: 20 June 1866
End date: July 1866
 
Notes:
All-play-all, matches for the first to win 3. Gaige and Di Felice give the same results, including the information that the Bird-MacDonell match did not take place and that Trelawney defaulted all his games except the 3 losses against Minchin. La Grande Storia degli Scacchi differs in not reporting the drawn game between Minchin and MacDonnell, in giving the three wins by de Vere over Trelawney as actually played, rather than forfeited, and in giving a Bird-MacDonnell score of +2-3. Feenstra Kuiper (corrected scores in Hundert Jahre Schachzweikämpfe) gives only totals, which are consistent with Gaige and Di Felice except in excluding the draw Minchin-MacDonnell and the one win by Bird over Minchin. Löwenthal, in the Chess Player's Magazine and the Era, gives some early results, and then only final scores (in the 26 Aug. 1866 issue of the Era, p.6). With no further information to go on, I will take the results given by Gaige and Di Felice. Di Felice gives dates November '23-?', which is clearly an error. La Grande Storia degli Scacchi gives 19-24 June. Löwenthal gives the program which states that the opening was June 19 but play started on June 20. Staunton reports in the Illustrated London News of July 28 that de Vere had won the cup of the 'so-called' British Chess Association, and Löwenthal says that de Vere had won in the Aug. 1866 issue of the Chess Player's Magazine (p.233), so it must have finished in July.
 
References
Books
   Di Felice, Chess Results, 1747-1900, page 44
   Feenstra Kuiper, 100 Jahre Schachturniere, page 21
   Feenstra Kuiper, 100 Jahre Schachzweikämpfe, page 100
   Gaige, Chess Tournament Crosstables I, page 8
   Harding, Eminent Victorian Chess Players, page 117
   Sergeant, Century of British Chess, page 141
Periodicals
   [Alb], 11 Aug. 1866
   [CPM], vol. 2, no. 7, July 1866, page 196
   [CPM], vol. 2, no. 8, Aug. 1866, page 232, 252
   [CPM], vol. 2, no. 9, Sep. 1866, page 263
   [CPM], vol. 2, no. 10, Oct. 1866, page 306
   [CPM], vol. 2, no. 12, Dec. 1866, page 364
   [CPM], vol. 3, no. 3, Mar. 1867, page 85
   [CW], vol. 2, no. 7, Sep. 1866, page 217
   [Era], vol. 28, no. 1447, 17 June 1866, page 5
   [Era], vol. 28, no. 1448, 24 June 1866, page 7
   [Era], vol. 28, no. 1449, 1 July 1866, page 7
   [Era], vol. 28, no. 1453, 29 July 1866, page 5
   [Era], vol. 28, no. 1457, 26 Aug. 1866, page 6
   [ILN], vol. 49, no. 1382, 28 July 1866, page 99
   [ILN], vol. 49, no. 1384, 11 Aug. 1866, page 147
Web
   Sericano, C.  [London BCA Challenge Cup 1866]

Tournament information updated: 15 Jan. 2020