Edward Mackenzie Jackson

Winner of the club championship 11 times in 1924, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 46, 47, 1948.

The information below was provided by Brian Denman.

He was a very talented player who won the Hastings CC Championship several times. All of these wins were achieved when he was of an age when some players would be thinking of retiring. He seemed to generally enjoy exceptional health and to look younger than his years.

He was born in the September quarter of 1867 in the Kensington Registration District. In 1881 he played for the St Georges CC in London against the City of London CC and won both of his games. He went to Winchester (N.B. presumably College) and later to New College, Oxford. From 1888-90 he played for Oxford University in the matches against Cambridge and won all his games, obtaining a half-blue award. In 1892 and 1893 he won the prestigious Lowenthal Cup at the St Georges CC. In 1895-96 he played matches against Teichmann and Herbert Jacobs and lost both of them convincingly, but he was selected to represent Great Britain in the cable match against USA in 1896. He played in these matches every year until 1901 and one year defeated the formidable American player, Frank Marshall (please see games’ section below). Some time in the early years of the twentieth century he gave up regular competitive chess and concentrated on his profession as a solicitor.

He started to play regularly again in about 1924. He joined the Bexhill and Hastings chess clubs and in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer of 21.6.1924 it was reported that he had given a 16 board simultaneous to what seemed to be mainly Hastings CC players, winning 6, drawing 8 and losing only 2 games. One of his opponents was J A J Drewitt, with whom he drew.

In the McArthur Cup there were rules up to the 1960s which placed restricitions on who could participate. Jackson was permitted to play for Bexhill (for whom he was to became the president) even though he was in the first class as a player. However, Brighton and Hastings were not allowed to field ‘first-class’ players in the competition and Jackson would not have been able to play for Hastings. It could be argued that this was unfair and it gave Bexhill something of an advantage.

Jackson played a number of times in the Hastings congresses and in the 1931-32 and 1932-33 seasons he participated in the prestigious Premier event. In 1932 he competed in the British Championship and made an excellent start. Perhaps he tired in the later rounds, but his win over Mir Sultan Khan in the competition was a superb result (please see games’ section below).

As he grew older, he continued to play a good game. In 1953 he fell seriously ill and had to withdraw from the Hastings CC Championship. However, he got over this and resumed his chess. It has been written that he once played on board 7 for Sussex at the age of 91. It would seem, however, that this statement is not quite exact. He did play for Sussex v Kent on board 7 on 3.11.1956 in a match at Hastings, but he would then have been a mere 89! He died on 6.3.1959 in Bexhill at the age of 91 (N.B. some versions state that he was 92, but this would appear to be wrong).