Members · Prefs · Laboratory · Collections · Openings · Endgames · Sacrifices · History · Search Kibitzing · Kibitzer's Café · Chessforums · Tournament Index · Players · Kibitzing

Charles Henry Stanley

Charles Stanley (left) during his match with John Turner (right) in Washington in 1850

CHARLES HENRY STANLEY (born 1819, died Oct-06-1901, 82 years old) United Kingdom (federation/nationality United States of America) [what is this?] Charles Henry Stanley was born in Middlesex, England, in 1819. In 1841, he played Howard Staunton, receiving odds of pawn and two moves, the extant games being +3-2=1 in his favour. Stanley emigrated to New York in 1842 and eventually worked at the British Consulate. He was regarded as the best chess player in New York from 1842 to 1857. In 1844, he defeated John William Schulten in two matches in New York. He started America's first chess column in the New York Spirit of the Times on March 1, 1845, which contained the first chess problem published in America. The chess column ran until October, 1848 (1). In 1845, he, again, defeated John William Schulten in a match in New York. In December, 1845, he defeated Eugene Rousseau at the New Orleans Chess Club (Sazerac Coffee House) in the first unofficial US Championship (15 wins, 8 losses, 8 draws) (9). This was the first organized chess event in the United States. The stakes for the event was $1,000. Rousseau's second was Eugene Morphy, Paul's uncle. Paul Morphy attended the match at the age of 8 and became interested in chess. In 1846 Stanley defeated Charles Vezan in New York and George Hammond in Chicago. In October 1846, he started the American Chess Magazine: a periodical Organ of Communication for American Chess-Players, which folded in September 1847 (2). In 1846 he published the first book in America on a chess match, 31 Games of Chess. The New York Albion published his chess column from 1848 until 1856; it was then conducted by Perrin and Young until George Henry Mackenzie took over in 1866. (3). In February, 1850 he defeated John Turner (10) of Louisville, Kentucky, in Washington, D.C., and drew a match against Johann Jacob Loewenthal (+3-3=0) in New York. In 1852 he suggested the holding of an international chess tournament at the Great Exhibition in New York in 1853, but nothing came of it. In 1852, he drew a match with Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant in New York (+4-4=0). In 1855 he organized the first World Chess Problem tournament. In 1857 he was knocked out in the first round of the 1st American Chess Congress (1857) by Theodore Lichtenhein, winning 2 games and losing 3 games. He was considered to be America's first chess champion until he lost a match with Paul Morphy. Soon in December of that year, Stanley's daughter, Pauline, was born & named after her father's successor in chess. From October 1858 until June of 1859, he ran a column for Harper's Weekly, also publishing Morphy's Match Games and The Chess Player's Instructor prepared over the course of that winter & spring (4, 5, 6). In 1860 he returned to England and took 2nd in the British Chess Association Congress in Cambridge, losing to Ignatz von Kolisch. From 1860 to 1862, he edited a chess column in the Manchester Express and Guardian, winning an 1861 tournament in Leeds(7). He lost an 1868 match to George Mackenzie in New York and wrote another chess column for the New York Round Table in the year following the match (8). He was an alcoholic who spent his last 20 years in institutions on Ward's Island and in the Bronx. He died in 1901. References: (1) New York Spirit of the Times Wikipedia article: Spirit of the Times (1845-8), (2) American Chess Magazine: a periodical Organ of Communication for American Chess-Players (1846-7), (3) New York Albion (1848-56), (4) Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization - Chess Chronicle - http://harpers.org/index.html (1858-9), (5) Morphy's Match Games (1859), (6) The Chess Player's Instructor (1859), (7) Manchester Express and Guardian (1860-2), (8) New York Round Table (1869), (9) http://graeme.50webs.com/chesschamp... (10) http://graeme.50webs.com/chesschamp... (11) http://www.chessarch.com/excavation... (collated chess columns of historical interest). Wikipedia article: Charles Henry Stanley Last updated: 2022-05-24 15:12:25

Try our new games table.

page 1 of 7; games 1-25 of 165  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. C Stanley vs Staunton   0-1 54 1841 Odds game 000 Chess variants 2. C Stanley vs NN 1-0 22 1841 Casual game C39 King's Gambit Accepted 3. C Stanley vs Staunton   0-1 29 1842 Odds match 000 Chess variants 4. C Stanley vs Staunton   ½-½ 29 1842 Odds game 000 Chess variants 5. J Brown vs C Stanley   1-0 36 1842 Casual game C23 Bishop's Opening 6. C Stanley vs J Brown   1-0 38 1842 Match C44 King's Pawn Game 7. C Stanley vs J Brown   0-1 53 1842 Match C45 Scotch Game 8. J Brown vs C Stanley   0-1 33 1842 Casual game C53 Giuoco Piano 9. C Stanley vs NN   1-0 15 1842 Casual game C53 Giuoco Piano 10. J Brown vs C Stanley   0-1 41 1842 Casual game C44 King's Pawn Game 11. C Stanley vs Staunton   1-0 41 1842 Odds match 000 Chess variants 12. C Stanley vs Staunton   0-1 38 1842 Odds game 000 Chess variants 13. C Stanley vs Staunton   1-0 48 1842 Odds game 000 Chess variants 14. C Stanley vs J Brown   0-1 36 1842 Casual series C53 Giuoco Piano 15. J Brown vs C Stanley   0-1 57 1842 Match C52 Evans Gambit 16. C Stanley vs J Brown   0-1 53 1842 Casual game C44 King's Pawn Game 17. C Stanley vs J Brown 0-1 31 1842 Casual game C44 King's Pawn Game 18. C Stanley vs Staunton   1-0 32 1842 Odds game 000 Chess variants 19. C Stanley vs Staunton   1-0 31 1842 Odds match 000 Chess variants 20. C Stanley vs J Brown   1-0 27 1842 Casual game C40 King's Knight Opening 21. C Stanley vs J Brown   0-1 35 1842 Casual game C53 Giuoco Piano 22. C Stanley vs J Schulten   0-1 35 1844 Stanley - Schulten m(1) C45 Scotch Game 23. C Vezin vs C Stanley ½-½ 64 1844 Match C53 Giuoco Piano 24. J Schulten vs C Stanley 1-0 71 1844 Stanley - Schulten m(2) C20 King's Pawn Game 25. J Schulten vs C Stanley 1-0 27 1844 New York m1 C20 King's Pawn Game  page 1 of 7; games 1-25 of 165

REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Stanley wins | Stanley loses

< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 2 ·  Later Kibitzing> Feb-04-05    euripides: Judging from the games, Stanley appears to be an American, who was playing in New York and New Orleans in the 1840s and visited England in the 1850s. Anyone know more ? Feb-04-05    sneaky pete: <euripides> Born England, 1819, moved to the USA in the 1840s, was considered the American champion from 1845 when he defeated Rousseau in a match until 1857 (Morphy). Feb-04-05    euripides: <pete> many thanks ! Jun-27-05    Knight13: Charles Henry Stanley (1819 - 1901) was the first chess champion of the United States. He became the champion in 1845 after defeating Eugène Rousseau of New Orleans in a match for the championship. Stanley was an Englishman who came to the USA in 1843, and his English ideas had a great influence on American chess. One of his ideas was to have a regular newspaper column devoted to chess, which he started in 1845 in The Spririt of the Times. He also started the American Chess Magazine in 1846, but others copied the idea (which originated in England), and competition forced the magazine out of business. In 1855 he organized the first World Problem Tournament. In 1846 he published the first US book on a chess match, 31 Games of Chess. Stanley is a little known figure who has been eclipsed by the achievements of the world famous Paul Morphy. He played Morphy in 1857, losing the title of US Chess Champion to his much better opponent. He was married and later had a daughter Pauline, who was named after Morphy. --- Wikipedia Apr-02-09    WhiteRook48: from 1881 to 1901 he got drunk?! Dec-20-10    Phony Benoni: Stanley seems to have had that wonderful editorial knack of handling correspondents with subtle insults in the stately Victorian manner. Here are a couple of examples from his column in <The Albion>: (October 10, 1852) <"...but the fact of your ability to solve a three move problem is not conclusive as to its unfitness for publication."> (November 6, 1852) <"Your four move problem can be solved in two. As regards No. 201, notwithstanding your extreme confidence you are in error; it not being "soluble" (without the aid of nitric acid) in less than the stipulated number of moves. In the game of Chess, you should always look at least one move deep."> Jan-16-13    thomastonk: In the "New York Spirit of the Times" on May 24th, 1845 he gives the number of wins in the three matches with John William Schulten: 11:5, 11:9 and 15:13, each time in Stanley's favour. Jan-16-13    thomastonk: In the "New York Spirit of the Times" on October 11, 1845 Stanley reports on a match with Schulten which is "now in course", and hence both played even a fourth match! There is no result of this match published until Stanley leaves NY for New Orleans, where he played the well-known match with Eugene Rousseau. But Stanley must have won it, too, because he calls himself the strongest player in the North, when he played Rousseau. Jan-16-13    jnpope: The fourth match was temporarily halted so Stanley could play Rousseau. When Stanley returned to New York the match was resumed: <The following games were contested at the N. Y. Chess Club, on Monday evening, in continuation of a match which has been for some time pending, and has at length terminated in Mr. Schulten's favor. The result of a total number of twenty-two games played, is as follows:- Won by Mr. Schulten . . . 11 Won by Mr. Stanley . . . 7 Drawn games . . . 4 Total number of games played . . . 22 We have much pleasure in congratulating Mr. Schulten on the achievement of his victory, which, indeed, his great skill and untiring perseverance have well merited.> source: New York Spirit of the Times 1846.03.28 Jan-16-13    jnpope: From the bio above: <In 1948, the New York Albion published his chess column until 1856, & it was not until 1866 when George Henry Mackenzie revived the column a decade later (3).> Ok, who writes this stuff? The column ran continuously. I haven't gotten around to posting the decade of Perrin and Young columns because 99.9% of them are just problems, no news, no games... so I gave those a lower priority in getting them scanned and uploaded to the Chess Archaeology website. Jan-16-13    Phony Benoni: <jnpope> Apparently, the biographer assumed that the gap at Chess Archaeology was due to the column being discontinued. Thanks for the information. I've made a change to that part, but haven't examined the rest of the bio carefully. Jan-16-13    jnpope: <Phony Benoni> Thanks. Small things like that drive me nuts. Jan-17-13    thomastonk: <jnpope> Thank you very much for the results of the fourth Schulten match! The columns of 1846 I will read only today ... This lost match is quite remarkable, I think, because Stanley just won the title of the U.S. chess champion. Moreover, Schulten's results in these four matches have a clear upward tendency! Sep-29-13    offramp: One thousand ante-bellum dollars. That's a whole heap of mazoolah. Sep-30-13    offramp: In fact I had a look at http://www.measuringworth.com/uscom... and it gives the following answer: <In 2012, the relative value of $1,000.00 from 1846 ranges from $23,300.00 to $7,870,000.00.> So it is easy to see that the Stanley-Rousseau match, with a prize fund of just under $8,000,000.00, is the sporting event with the highest prize fund in the history of the entire world. Magnus Carlsen would weep into his Rakfisk if he ever found that out! Aug-29-14    BIDMONFA: Charles Henry Stanley STANLEY, Charles http://www.bidmonfa.com/stanley_cha... _ Jul-25-15    Ke2: ^you should ask floyd mayweather about that Aug-19-17    offramp: ^ Some people do this thing called adjusting for inflation. Sometimes people see adverts in old newspapers, where brand new cars cost $300. Some people say, "Wow! Why didn't people back then buy a new car every week!" In fact there are sound economic reasons why people did, in general, <not> buy a new car every week. Aug-19-17    WorstPlayerEver: <offramp> Hmmm.. logically spoken there should have to be no inflation in times of gr... peace. Jul-25-21    Nosnibor: He did well to live to 82 years of age bearing in mind he was an alcoholic for the last twenty years of his life. Very sad to note in view of his achievements in chess and journalism. Jul-25-21    MissScarlett: I think it more accurate to congratulate him on surviving the sixty odd years before he was committed. Journalism and diplomacy are two fields sodden with drink. Jul-29-21    MissScarlett: I've recently turned to Stanley's biography with special regard to the following questions: i) what evidence is there that he was born in Brighton? ii) when did he emigrate to America? iii) what's the source of the story about Morphy sending the match winnings to Mrs Stanley? iv) likewise, the naming of Pauline? v) why did he return to England (minus family) between 1860 and 1862? vi) when/why was he first institutionalised? Jul-29-21    MissScarlett: Not unexpectedly, getting nowhere in particular, I remembered that I ought to check edochess ... <Although Stanley moved to New York around 1842, problems by 'C. Stanley, of Brighton' were appearing in the Illustrated London News (e.g. 27 Sept. 1845, p.208), and the Chess Player's Chronicle (e.g. Sept. 1845, p.257) in 1845. This was, however, a different Charles Stanley (see Townsend, pp.93-94).> http://www.edochess.ca/players/p24.... Hold your horses, I have that Townsend book.... Aug-09-21    MissScarlett: <But gradually, some answers also began to emerge along with Gaige’s skill as a researcher which he acquired largely by trial and error. His approach was described in the appendix of his Catalog of USA Chess Personalia. A case in point: By all accounts (such as A Sketchbook of American Chess Problemists, Vol. I , page 6), Charles Henry Stanley died in New York City on 16 March 1894. Gaige’s increasingly systematized research found that was the approximate date of death in England of a Henry Stanley, not of Charles Henry Stanley. A painstaking search through New York City’s records of death showed that Stanley did not die there before 1900. Examination of the 1900 US Census Report showed an 80-year-old Charles H. Stanley living in New York City at the time. From there, it was simple enough to find the date of death but not, unfortunately, the exact date of birth. (A full account is given in the BCM, 1982, pages 364-367.)> https://www.chesshistory.com/winter... Aug-09-21    MissScarlett: <C.N. 6563. Staunton v Stanley match Rod Edwards (Victoria, BC, Canada) writes: ‘The record of Howard Staunton’s matches given on pages 129-130 of your 1981 book World Chess Champions shows the result of his match with Charles Henry Stanley at the odds of pawn and two moves as +2 –3 =1, and the year is given as 1841. The Oxford Companion to Chess (first edition, page 324; second edition, page 389) concurs on the result and the year. Feenstra Kuiper’s Hundert Jahre Schachzweikämpfe (page 12), Golombek’s Encyclopedia (pages 307 and 456 of the hardback and paperback editions respectively) and Chess Results, 1747-1900 by Di Felice (page 3) all have the same result but give the year as 1839. Fiske’s New York, 1857 tournament book (page 406) states that the match was played not long before Stanley’s departure for the United States (which he says was in 1842), and that Stanley won “by a large majority”. However, in the 1842 volume of the Chess Player’s Chronicle (page 368) Staunton wrote: “Messrs St--n and S--y have played in all but 12 games, exclusive of drawn ones, at the odds of ‘the pawn and two moves’. Of these 12, Mr S--y won seven, and Mr St--n five.” I wonder where the +2 –3 =1 result comes from originally, and how it can be reconciled with Staunton’s claim in the Chess Player’s Chronicle. World Chess Champions indicates (page 130) that in cases where the final scores were not known the match results given “are those of surviving games”. Presumably, this does not apply to the Staunton-Stanley match, since I count eight game-scores in volume two of the Chess Player’s Chronicle (pages 117-118, 200, 211-212, 213, 226-228, 241-242, 293-294 and 324-325), amounting to +3 –4 =1 for Staunton. I wonder whether all these games were considered part of the formal match.’ The Staunton biography and results tables in World Chess Champions were by R.N. Coles. The only addition that we can offer at present is that an account of Stanley’s life on pages 364-367 of the August 1982 BCM (following research by Jeremy Gaige) stated that Staunton was defeated +2 –3 =1 and that the contest took place in December 1841.> I have some <BCM> volumes from around that time but not 1982. Where's <Miss Sally> when you need her? search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 2 ·  Later Kibitzing>

NOTE: Create an account today to post replies and access other powerful features which are available only to registered users. Becoming a member is free, anonymous, and takes less than 1 minute! If you already have a username, then simply login login under your username now to join the discussion.

Please observe our posting guidelines: No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language. No spamming, advertising, duplicate, or gibberish posts. No vitriolic or systematic personal attacks against other members. Nothing in violation of United States law. No cyberstalking or malicious posting of negative or private information (doxing/doxxing) of members. No trolling. The use of "sock puppet" accounts to circumvent disciplinary action taken by moderators, create a false impression of consensus or support, or stage conversations, is prohibited. Do not degrade Chessgames or any of it's staff/volunteers. Please try to maintain a semblance of civility at all times. See something that violates our rules? Blow the whistle and inform a moderator. NOTE: Please keep all discussion on-topic. This forum is for this specific player only. To discuss chess or this site in general, visit the Kibitzer's Café.

Messages posted by Chessgames members do not necessarily represent the views of Chessgames.com, its employees, or sponsors. All moderator actions taken are ultimately at the sole discretion of the administration.

Copyright 2001-2025, Chessgames Services LLC