THE EARLY DAYS
 
Leeds Chess Club was founded in 1834, about the time that slavery was abolished in England. The massive compensation paid out by the government to the unfortunate slave owners meant that there was lots of money swilling about in the economy at the time. Back then, of course, chess was a game only for the well to do. Poorer people would have been too busy staving off starvation and disease. The annual subscriptions of two shillings (10p) would have crippled most families. Still, the lucky few gathered in sumptuous coffee houses to pursue their sport.

IMPROVED COMMUNICATIONS

Inter-city matches were difficult until the 1840s when the growth of the railways and the inauguration of the penny post made communications and travel much easier. Previously, a match with Manchester, for example, would have involved a gruelling three-day round trip by coach and horses.

THE WEST YORKSHIRE & YORKSHIRE CHESS ASSOCIATIONS

Leeds Chess Club members were instrumental in bringing the various clubs of West Yorkshire together to play matches. Matches soon became annual affairs. Five course dinners were laid on for visiting teams and the West Yorkshire Chess Association developed as a result of friendships made at these events. Similar meetings were happening in the other ridings and the Yorkshire Chess Association soon superseded the WYCA. In 1885, Alderman Edwin Woodhouse (Lord Mayor of Leeds and President of Leeds Chess Club) presented a magnificent silver trophy to the Association, the Woodhouse Cup, and we still fight to the death over it to this day.

THE GLORY YEARS
 
Leeds Chess Club’s glory years were from the turn of the century until the First World War came along and ruined everything. The club met at the opulent Grand Café on Park Lane and was so successful that the establishment itself soon changed its name to the Gambit Café.

Most of the club’s priceless silver trophies originated during this period. For example, when CW Jeffery died unexpectedly in 1910 at the age of thirty, annual subscriptions were raised to 7/6d (seven shillings and sixpence!) to pay for a memorial trophy in his honour. (It's about the size of the FA Cup.) Before his untimely demise, Mr Jeffery had himself generously presented the silver Rose Bowl trophy to the club to be played for in perpetuity as the individual club championship. Sad to lose CW so early, but the following year members were very pleased to present Mr TGC Jones esq with a set of silver fish knives on the happier occasion of his marriage.

Did they have some sort of silver fetish going on at the club at the time? These days, we can only guess.
 
FD YATES
 
FD Yates (British Champion 1913, 14, 21, 26, 28 & 31) was Leeds Chess Club's top board in the Woodhouse Cup when we won it five years on the trot from 1911 to 1915. We won the trophy outright, but generously presented it back to the Association to be played for in perpetuity. Blackburn, England’s top player, visited the club regularly during this period, giving several simultaneous exhibitions, although his fee of five guineas was thought excessive by many members.

THE FIRST WAR
 
Pre-war, Leeds Chess Club was undoubtedly the strongest club in the nation. The juniors were winning everything too, but a young and promising team - needs must - was sacrificed for the greater good against the Hun.

After the Great War, we remained strong, but some of the spirit seems to have evaporated from the club. Membership was down, understandable perhaps as there were dozens of millions less people alive in the world, and finances were less assured, indeed worrying.

THE TWENTIES & THIRTIES
 
To try to get things rolling again, the great Capablanca was persuaded to visit the club in 1919 to give a simultaneous exhibition. (Capa was a gentleman, so let’s not discuss his fee.) We put forty of our best out against him all at the same time, and we lost, +0=0–40. Respect due.
 
Several years later, Alekhine could only manage +28=3–2, but then he did take full advantage of the club’s hospitality, piss in a plant pot and try it on with the Treasurer’s wife. The Secretary recorded: “I suppose we were lucky we didn’t get the full salute.”

As the Great Depression bit, there was little of interest recorded in the minute books. Even the centenary celebrations in 1934 were low-key and muted. The only event of real note was the first ever telephone match played between Leeds Chess Club and Hampstead in 1935.

THE SECOND WAR

By 1939, the club was in poor shape and there were real problems collecting the annual subscriptions. This time, the Second World War came as something of a relief. The minute books record that in September, the club had to cancel all evening matches due to the blackout. The following year, the salubrious Gambit Café on Park Lane, along with the city's museum, was unceremoniously bombed to the ground by the swastika-wielding Luftwaffe.
 
MODERN TIMES
 
The post-war years have seen chess change from a game for the privileged few into a game for the many. Leeds Chess Club’s monopoly on Leeds chess withered and died in the nineteen-sixties when various works teams began to make their presence felt. Nevertheless, we won the Woodhouse Cup in 1946, 47, 55, 56, 57, 63, 64, 67, 73 & 80.
 
1982 is the last recorded instance of Leeds Chess Club winning the Woodhouse Cup.