"Harold Edwin Price (BSc Hons 1960) loved by so many and known as Eddie, was born in Johannesburg on the 26 January 1939 to his devoted parents, Anne and Jules, followed soon after by his beloved sister Maureen. Like so many of his generation, his grandparents had come from Lithuania and what was then Palestine, but his father was born in Oudsthoorn and his mother in Johannesburg, and in due course they became Bobba and Oupa to Eddie’s kids.

Eddie went to Miss Morrow’s kindergarten and then Kenilworth Junior School. His brilliance was soon recognised by his teachers and when he was about 11, his headteacher approached his parents, who were not educated, thinking to persuade them to let Eddie continue in education beyond 16 and especially, to go on to university. They needed no persuading, although his father, Jules, in his own dry way, which he passed on to Eddie, replied: he doesn’t really have the body for physics.

Eddie went on to Rosettenville Central School and then Forest High School. At 13 his life was to change forever by being introduced to the game of chess. Soon after, a chess grandmaster and world champion, Max Euwe, was playing in a simultaneous competition playing several members of the public at once; anyone could step up to play him and this young 14-year-old boy, who had not long learned the game, made newspaper headlines by winning the game, to the astonishment of everyone.

He became a schoolboy chess champion several times over, a game which was to prove central to his life. A born scientist, he went on to Wits to a BSc Honours in physics, and then won the Elsie Ballot Scholarship for study at the illustrious University of Cambridge. Soon married, he and his wife Joan moved to England where he completed his MPhil in Physics at St Johns College, Cambridge, and his oldest daughter, Vicki, was born. He came back to South Africa to a lecturing job at Wits, and after a couple of years and another baby, Debbie, bought the house in Greenside, where his youngest child Toni was born, where he lived, and where he ultimately died on 22 February 2022.

Eddie in due course became a South African Chess Champion, represented his country at the Maccabi Games and at two World Chess Olympiads including the Chess Olympiad in Havana, Cuba 1966. This was one of the last Olympics to which South Africans were allowed before the boycott years. Che Guevara, a keen chess player, was a frequent spectator at the games, and Eddie retains a treasured chess set presented to him by Fidel Castro himself. His contributions to the South African Chess Federation and chess in South Africa more widely were legion, serving many times as President, with a career spanning committee work, tournament directing, administration, coaching, and indeed as an international chess arbiter, ultimately representing South Africa on the FIDE committee which sets the world rules of chess. He was South Africa’s delegate to FIDE Congress, and campaigned tirelessly, at the highest levels and globally, for South Africa to be readmitted to international chess.

He and his friend, Arthur Kobesi, dedicated themselves to introducing chess to schoolchildren in Soweto, with Eddie believing all his life in the transformative power of the game. He persuaded international grandmasters to visit, often staying at his Greenside house, to strengthen the game in South Africa, and a number of players recall a legendary braai at Eddie’s house in the early 1990s, where to their surprise they found the World Champion, Anatoly Karpov hanging out. Eddie had invited Karpov to his home to introduce him to the taste of boerewors cooked on his famous Swannie Braai. When South Africa was re-admitted to the Chess Olympiad after the ending of the boycott, Eddie returned with the team to Yerevan, Armenia in 1996, this time not as a player but with himself and Arthur Kobesi as Captain and FIDE Delegate. He travelled the world with chess and managed many teams over the later years of his career, including – in a departure from chess – the South Africa Maccabi squash team at one of the Maccabi games.

For the last eight years, Eddie was cared for at home by his carers who became a welcome part of the household together with their families, and during the school holidays the Greenside house would once again ring to the sound of children’s laughter, which Eddie welcomed too. The last two years have been particularly harsh with him being separated from his children and grandson by the pandemic"