Mary Rudge
Mary Rudge ( born February 6, 1842 in Leominster, † November 22, 1919 in London) was a leading chess player of England in the last quarter of the 19th century. After their convincing victory in the "First International Chess Tournament for Women " in 1897 in London you counted them among the strongest players in the world. The British Chess Magazine titled it after this success - 30 years before the first official competition for the chess crown of women - as the first world chess champion.
Life
Mary Rudge was born on February 6, 1842 as daughter of the physician Henry and his wife Eliza Rudge in Leominster, a small town in southwest England, where she grew up and lived for 32 years. After her father's death in 1874, Mary left her hometown and moved in with her older sister Caroline - both were unmarried - further to the south west to Bristol. There she lived with her brother Henry, a bachelor who worked since 1870 in the port city as assistant pastor.
Beginning of the chess career in Bristol
The game of chess learned Mary Rudge of her two sisters Emily ( † 1873) and Caroline († 1900), which in turn were taught by his father Henry it. A first mention of Mary Rudges related to chess is found in 1872, when she participated in a correspondence chess tournament of the magazine Gentleman 's Journal; from this tournament also originate their first recorded games. Rudges move to Bristol was conducive to their chess development, since they probably had in Leominster no serious chance to compete in OTB chess. Mary Rudge came under the Bristol Chess Club, the oldest, founded outside London Chess Club (1829 or 1830), who had just decided in 1872 to also include women.
In Bristol Rudge first met in 1875, especially in appearance, as they played against the English champions Joseph Henry Blackburne, who visited in February, the Bristol Chess Club for three days and was a blind simultaneous event at ten boards. Mary Rudge lost the game after 27 moves. In October of the following year was staying at the invitation of the Club of Pole Johannes Hermann Zukertort in Bristol to measure also the blind play against multiple opponents, this time on twelve boards. The course and the outcome of his match against Mary Rudge are not known, total Zukertort won five games, remisierte three and lost a match; the other three were not completed.
In the coming years, Henry Rudge gave up his job as a curate at St. Thomas Church and took over until 1885 the management of Luccombe House Preparatory School in Bristol, where it is assumed that his two sisters were working as teachers in the school. When Henry in 1885 gave the school board and pulled away to take up a new position as pastor in Southport on the middle west coast of England, Mary Rudge remained in Bristol. At the age of 45 years now improved Rudge under the influence of their chess clubs chess and was inducted into the crew of the Bristol and Clifton Chess clubs with foreign clubs. In the years 1887 and 1888 two meetings are recorded, in which Mary on the sixth board against male opposition won once and once played draw. 1888, she appeared in another simultaneous game against Blackburne and this time came to a draw, in the following year she won the Challenge Cup of the Bristol and Clifton Chess Club.
After the departure of her brother from Bristol - Henry finally died in 1891 - came Mary Rudge, who had no separate, solid living in financial difficulties. So a call was published in the British Chess Magazine in 1889 did, was asked in the support for Rudge. Around this time, the Irish journalist Frideswide Rowland took to her; Rowland organized, together with her husband Thomas B. Rowland, chess events, chess own published compositions and played a key at this time influence on chess in Ireland. Mary Rudge was at Rowland work as a society lady, hovering in the next few years between England and Ireland. By the year 1896 Mary Rudge continued to play in teams ( Bristol and Gloucestershire ) and gave the Irish Clontarf ( near Dublin ) - possibly the first woman ever - a simultaneous exhibition on six boards, where they could win all the games. She also played in Ireland for Clontarf Chess Club: In the season 1889/1890 Rudge remained in eleven games on the second board undefeated at eight wins and three draws.
Six years later in 1890 the Ladies' Challenge Cup in Cambridge, the "B - tournament" of the Southern Counties Tournament in Bristol, the only woman among the ten participants: In the 1890s, she won two smaller tournaments.
The first international women's tournament in London in 1897
The ladies learned chess in 1895 in the UK a not insignificant boost when the International Master Tournament of Hastings in addition to program a tournament for women was held in the media and in public learned increased attention. In the same year was also established under the initiative of Mrs. Rhoda Bowles of London Ladies Chess Club. Mrs. Bowles was also two years later in London the first chess tournament for women organized, which was held with international participation. This tournament, which Mary Rudge was able to complete as a superior winner, should - at the age of 55 years - become their greatest success.
The international women's tournament was advertised for June 1897 was celebrated at the very time when the 60-year jubilee of Queen Victoria in London. The patronage of the tournament took over "Princess Maud of Wales ", a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The tournament was announced in March in various publications, as in London's The Field, the Times took over the regular reporting, and also in the German chess magazine can be found in the March issue a first indication; of a total of 32 applications were accepted by the organizers finally 20. The German chess magazine wrote after the tournament that " representatives of almost all countries in which the game of chess is native ," had participated and only player from Austria and Russia were missing. The participants came from England ( eleven players ), Ireland (two), Scotland, France, USA, Canada, Belgium and Italy ( one player ); the only starting for Germany lady was "Miss Anna Hertzsch from Halle a S.," "Miss Müller- Hartung ," another German, played for the United States.
The games were held from June 23 in the first tournament week at the Hotel Cecil, during the second week you had to move because of the celebration of the Jubilee in the local club of Ladies Chess Club, the tournament ended on July 3. The participants had to play two games in one day, the rounds were set up respectively on 13 and 19 clock. As a reflection of each player were an hour for twenty moves are available, after four hours of play, the games were canceled and continued to play the cliffhanger the next morning. Belonged to favorites - next to Mary Rudge - the winner of the women's tournament in Hastings, Lady Edith Margaret Thomas, as well as the runner-up, "Miss Fox " (her nickname is not known). In addition, Louisa Matilda Fagan (Italy) and Harriet Jonah Worrall, wife of the U.S. chess player Thomas Herbert Worrall.
Mary Rudge started out with 13 wins from 13 games and was the only half point in the fourteenth round against the later fifth-placed Marie Bonnefin from Belgium from. An important game for the tournament was in the previous round, had to play as Rudge against the hitherto runner Louisa Matilda Fagan. The Italian sacrificed in a balanced position a Springer, but had to give up a little later, as they had been eating a " hallucination ". Mary Rudge led with 13.5 points after 14 rounds with two points ahead of Fagan and won their remaining five games. At the end she scored 18.5 points from 19 games and won superior three points clear at Fagan, who could defend their second place. The runners-up Englishwoman Mary Eliza Thorold followed as third parties and Mrs Worrall in fourth. Anna Hertzsch from Germany finished in fourteenth place.
For their tournament success Mary Rudge got stately £ 60 (pounds sterling ), which corresponds to today's standards, converted to a sum of about £ 5,000 (about € 7,500 ) prize money. £ 15 were awarded for the sixth place yet, the special prize for the most beautiful game (20 £) donated the chess patron Albert von Rothschild. The prize fund was collected among others, the American champion Player Harry Nelson Pillsbury, the first prize donated by Sir George Newnes (1851-1910), a publisher and member of the British House of Representatives. The British Chess Magazine referred to in its final report to the London tournament Mary Rudge, which have long been regarded as the strongest chess player the world, now as a lady chess champion of the world.
The years following the success of London
One year after Rudges tournament success stayed the then world chess champion, the German Emanuel Lasker, in England. After his title defense against Wilhelm Steinitz (1896 ) Lasker was on tour in Europe several simultaneous events, the end of 1898 in London and Bristol. In Bristol Imperial Hotel also Mary Rudge was one of his opponents: After Lasker lack reached into a better position and only lost a pawn and then sacrificed the quality, Mary Rudge was on income ( see chart ). However, the simultaneous exhibition was after the agreed total playing time, after several hours of play, canceled. The game could not be brought to an end, but Lasker confessed immediately, " unofficially ", losing to a Rudge.
Mary Rudge played in the coming years continues for club teams and in small tournaments to write without significant headlines. When in 1900 her eldest sister Caroline died, Mary Rudge remained alone, without close relatives. In 1912, her mentor Rowland in the Cork Weekly News (Ireland ) published an ad in which she asked for financial aid for Mary Rudge. Do You Suffer from rheumatism and request support for the admission to a Dublin hospital.
Seven years later, on November 22, 1919, died the pioneer of women's chess in Guy's Hospital in London. Exactly thirty years after Rudges victory in the first international women's tournament won Vera Menchik the first official World Chess Championship for women. In the also staged in London World Cup tournament in the Chess Olympiad 1927 Menchik won with a comparable result as Rudge in eleven games and was only a draw from.