The transactions in chess connected with
Simpson's for the last quarter of a century, would fill a good size
volume, only including events of the greatest interest to chess
players. The lapse of the British Chess Association of 1862, and
the wane of the less successful B.C.A. of 1885, during a period
when chess has been making such rapid strides that clubs have
more than doubled, is a very remarkable feature in modern chess
play and its management. The seven years operations and
accounts of the present British Chess Association, though it had
the advantage of such names as Tennyson, Ruskin, Churchill and
Peel, on its presidential list, have not resulted in one half the
patronage, accorded to the Tournaments of 1851 and 1883, mainly
promoted by one single club, (the St. Georges') at times when no
Association of a public kind, ostensibly for the support,
improvement, and extension of worthy chess existed.
The eminent masters of the art of chess, registered in the list
of the British Chess Association of 1862, numbered 30, now there
are but 10, such has been the effect of the management of a game
yearly and daily increasing in favourable estimation, and the
practice of which, judging from the increase of chess clubs, press
notice and favour, sale of chess equipages of all kinds, and other
indications conclusively prove, must have increased at least
ten-fold in the present generation.
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