Sep-10-24
 | | Stonehenge: <For reasons which I do not now remember, the problem habitués of Gatti’s changed their rendezvous to Café Monico. We certainly were more secluded, but the chess room was not too well ventilated; still this was compensated for by our ventilation of ideas! I look back with pleasure on those evenings and recall many of the old frequenters who were ardent composers and keen solvers. A few come to mind: Barbier, Bedell, Brockelbank, Coster, Enderle, Geary, Guest, Piercher, Planck, Reyner and Rosenbaum. Sometimes Blackburne and Zukertort would honour us by their presence both at Café Monico and Gatti’s. This arrangement of meeting at a convenient resort was the best which could be suggested. Friday and Saturday were the most popular evenings. Chess, literature, drama, music, mathematics, athletics and politics were among the subjects discussed, and when the party dispersed it was with feelings that the time had not been ill-spent. On one of these occasions Brockelbank was challenged to compose a three-mover without the sight of board and men. He was known to enjoy the uncommon facility of playing the game sans voir. Before our usual hour for breaking up was reached, he produced this problem, explaining he had built around a powerful threat on a constrained king, the better to control things and thus render the task lighter. Seeing the peculiar subtleness of the play after the two principal defences of the black queen it was a notable accomplishment. Brockelbank had a remarkable memory for positions. One evening (in his absence) we were endeavouring to set up a three-mover of Barbier's, which he had shown some weeks before. Whilst we were casting about for clues, Brockelbank walked in when one of the party cried: “Here's Brockelbank, he'll remember it.” He at once maintained his reputation by setting it up without hesitation.> https://www.theproblemist.org/compo... |
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Sep-10-24
| | Stonehenge: <Mr. C. H. Brockelbank, who is the youngest competitor, save one, in
the Congress, his years being 29. In 1882 he learned the
game from that chess Gamaliel, Gunsberg, who prophesied
rapid advance for his precocious pupil, whose recent
achievement of winning first prize in the Auckland tournament, giving all sorts of odds to 64 opponents, was full of
merit. As a 'blindfold' player he stands alone in the
Australian colonies, and on three occasions he has
simultaneously conducted six games without sight of board.
In my opinion, Mr. Brockelbank's prospects for the next
championship are second to none, if he will but bank the
fires of bis impetuosity, and put the brake on his sacrificial
impulses. New Zealanders will regret, and Victorians
rejoice, that Mr. Brockelbank has decided to remain in
Melbourne.>
The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 Nov. 1888, p. 992. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/... |
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Sep-13-24
| | Stonehenge: Perhaps Clarence (sic) Hartree Brockelbank (sic) (1859-1935) who was an accountant. https://worldwide.espacenet.com/pub... Born and died in England, but in 1891 he can be found in <Queen Street, Melbourne, accountant> (The Argus, Melbourne, 11 Aug. 1891, p. 5). He was a member of the Auckland, Melbourne and Mildura chess clubs. The <New Zealand, Civil Records Indexes, 1800-1966> lists Brocklebank (sic) as a father in 1886. |
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Sep-13-24
 | | MissScarlett: <Clarence (sic) Hartree Brockelbank (sic)> seems to fit the bill perfectly. A position he sent in appears in the London <Morning Post> of December 22nd 1884. He resurfaces in the <Morning Post> of March 2nd 1896, as a member of a City of London CC side. The 1896 club report reveals he joined the club on September 10th 1895. It appears Hastings (1895) prompted a burst of new members. His baptismal record of July 27th 1859 in St. Alphege's, Greenwich, states he was born on July 1st. |
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Kibitzing
