Howard Staunton

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Lore & Background

Staunton was the Secretary of the Committee of Management for the London 1851 tournament, which was under the leadership of the Duke of Marlborough. Most committee members were from Staunton's chess club, St George's. Rivalries in British chess led the powerful London Chess Club to boycott the competition, and George Walker used his column in Bell's Life to try to disrupt preparations. Despite these obstacles, Staunton raised £500 for the prize fund, a considerable sum in 1851, worth about £359,000 in 2006's money. Subscriptions were obtained from chess clubs in England and overseas, including from the Calcutta Chess Club which contributed £100. Staunton offered to pay Anderssen's travel expenses out of his own pocket if necessary, should Anderssen fail to win a tournament prize; Anderssen accepted this generous offer. After the tournament, Staunton immediately challenged Anderssen to a twenty-one-game match for a £100 stake, but the proposed match was never played. Staunton wrote the tournament book, titled The Chess Tournament (1852).

Reader's Guide

Staunton's significance lies in his role as the organiser of the first international chess tournament in London 1851. He saw the Great Exhibition of May 1851 as a unique opportunity because the difficulties that obstructed international participation would be greatly reduced, for example it would be easier for contestants to obtain passports and leave from work. His ambitions extended beyond the tournament itself: he proposed convening a 'Chess Parliament' to complete the standardisation of moves and other rules, to standardise chess notation, to agree time limits, and to produce a compendium showing what was known about chess openings. He suggested further congresses and a review process for dealing with contentious issues. Staunton blamed his poor showing in the tournament on the strain of his duties in organising it, and also thought he suffered from a weak heart since an illness in 1844. He condemned the pursuit of chess as a profession, writing: 'Chess never was, and while society exists, never can be a profession. It may to a great extent strengthen the mind of the professional man, but it must never become the object of his life.' At least in part, this was the complaint of an ungracious loser, as most of Staunton's income was derived from his skill at chess.

Did You Know?

• Staunton raised £500 for the 1851 tournament prize fund, worth about £359,000 in 2006's money.
• He offered to pay Adolf Anderssen's travel expenses out of his own pocket if Anderssen failed to win a prize.
• After the tournament, Staunton immediately challenged Anderssen to a twenty-one-game match for a £100 stake, but the match was never played.
• Staunton wrote the tournament book titled The Chess Tournament (1852).
• The famous Immortal Game, Anderssen–Kieseritzky, was played as an offhand game during a break in this tournament.

The Vision Behind the First International

Staunton saw the Great Exhibition of May 1851 as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. London's chess community felt compelled to mirror the industrial showcase with their own grand event. Staunton proposed and led the organization of what would become the first international chess tournament, reasoning that the Exhibition's presence would ease logistical barriers—passports, work leave—for foreign players. His ambitions extended far beyond a simple competition. He envisioned a 'Chess Parliament' to finalize rules that still varied slightly between nations, to standardize chess notation, to impose time limits on players notorious for merely out-sitting opponents, and to produce a comprehensive table of known openings. Anticipating that one session could not handle all this, he proposed follow-up congresses, possibly including knowledgeable amateurs, along with a review process for contentious decisions. A 1848 letter by Ludwig Bledow proposing a similar German tournament may also have nudged Staunton toward his plan, though the delay in its publication remains unexplained.

Rivalries, Boycotts, and a Generous Gesture

Staunton's path to organizing the tournament was far from smooth. The Committee of Management was headed by the Duke of Marlborough, with Staunton serving as Secretary, and most members drawn from his own St George's chess club. This concentration of power triggered a bitter split: the powerful London Chess Club boycotted the event entirely, and George Walker used his column in Bell's Life to actively undermine preparations. Despite these hostilities, Staunton managed to raise £500 for the prize fund—an enormous sum in 1851, equivalent to roughly £359,000 in 2006 value. Morton also made two of the four largest individual donations. Perhaps most telling of Staunton's personal commitment was his offer to cover Adolf Anderssen's travel expenses from his own pocket should the German master fail to win a prize—a gesture that persuaded the reluctant Anderssen to accept his invitation.

Assembling the Field and the Knockout Gauntlet

The tournament was designed as a single-elimination bracket of sixteen players, with first-round matches played best-of-three (draws not counting) and later rounds best-of-seven. Pairings were determined by chance rather than any seeding system. Invitations had gone to masters from Germany, France, Russia, and Hungary, alongside seven British players. Yet the final field was shaped as much by absence as by presence. Hungarian revolutionary Grimm was exiled in Aleppo; Löwenthal, also a revolutionary, had fled to America but left his business behind to travel to London. Saint-Amant was posted as a French diplomat to California. Buckle, considered second only to Staunton among British players, missed the event entirely. The London Chess Club boycott also kept Daniel Harrwitz and potential substitutes like George Walker and George Perigal out of the pool. To fill the bracket, the committee promoted four players from a separate 'London Provincial Tournament'—Kennedy, Löwe, Mucklow, and Brodie—into the main event. The format proved unforgiving: three strong players, Kieseritzky, Bird, and Löwenthal, all fell in the first round.

A Champion Emerges, But the Title Remains Unofficial

Adolf Anderssen of Germany claimed the top prize in the sixteen-player field, earning him widespread recognition as the best player in the world. Two commentators—Captain Hugh Alexander Kennedy, who was both an organizer and a competitor, and the Liberty Weekly Tribune of Missouri—had written before the tournament began that the winner should be regarded as 'the World's Chess Champion.' Yet there is no evidence that crowning a world champion was a formal objective of the event. The tournament's stated goals were broader: standardizing rules, notation, and time controls, and advancing chess knowledge through the proposed opening compendium and future congresses. Staunton's legacy, therefore, extends well beyond a single victory. He created the template for international chess competition, navigated institutional rivalries to bring together players from across Europe, and planted the seeds for the formalized world championship structure that would develop in later decades. The London 1851 tournament remains the foundational moment where chess truly became a global sport.