A long preamble
The Belfast News-Letter chess column for the 5th May 1904 reported on an event that had occurred at a recent meeting of one of the Belfast chess clubs:
Strandtown Club
Mr. H. B. Williamson, of New Zealand, who has been a member of the club during an extended visit to his native land, in the course of an address to the members, in which he congratulated them on the success of the season's meetings, surprised those present by presenting the club with an artistically designed silver shield, mounted on an oak ground and surrounded by silver name plates. The shield bears, in addition to a chess-board in enamel, representations of King, Queen, Rook, Bishop and Knight. The inscription reads:- Championship Challenge Chess Trophy, presented to the Strandtown Chess Club by H. B. Williamson, New Zealand. Dr. Leslie, in an eloquent speech, proposed, Mr. J. Bennett seconded, and Mr. Steele supported, a vote of thanks to the generous donor, which also carried amid hearty applause.
Subsequently the News-Letter reported that at the annual general meeting of the Strandtown Chess Club on Tuesday 1st November:
A competition among chessists for the championship of Belfast, winner to hold the trophy presented by Mr H. B. Williamson, of New Zealand, was arranged, and will be held at the Strandtown Chess Rooms after Christmas.
1. The Trophy should be called the Williamson Shield.
2. That it should be competed for annually by 3 players to be selected by each club in Belfast and suburbs.
3. That the entrance fee for each competitor should be 2/6.
4. Chess players who are permanent residents in Belfast and unconnected with any club may compete on payment of an entrance fee of 5/-.
5. That the winner should be entitled to be called the champion of Belfast for the year and in addition to holding the shield and winner and runner-up should receive suitable mementoes.6. That in the event of a player winning the trophy on more than one occasion, he should have the date of any future success engraved upon the medal already presented.
7. That Strandtown members play off all ties at their own club and the other competitors where they wish provided that it be in the rooms of a recognised chess club.
The chess column of the News-Letter for 19th January 1905 carried the rules with the exception of number 7. Instead rule 6 finishes with the words, "The secretary of the Strandtown Chess Club will afford further information on application."
This was clearly no accident. The principal objection of the Belfast Chess Club to the original concept of the competition was that all play was to be in the rooms of the Strandtown club. Rule 7 was clearly an attempt to compromise on this issue [one major concession was that the final would not necessarily take place at Strandtown in the event of none of its players making the final] but it would appear that there were some doubts as to whether the Belfast club would be content with the Strandtown players still being at some advantage by being able to play all their games on home territory.
Meanwhile the Strandtown club continued to make arrangements for the competition. The minute book records that at a committee meeting on the 21st February Dr. Leslie, Mr. W. Y. Chamberlain and Mr. G. Brown had been chosen to represent the club and detailed rules, specifically for the 1905 competition, had been finalised. The rules provided for a knock out format with two rounds to be played, in which each tie was to consist of a single game, with drawn games to be replayed, and then a three game Final. However any illusion that the competition had a fair wind was dispelled by this notice appearing only two days later in the News-Letter chess column:
Belfast Chess Club
The committee of the club, at its last meeting, adopted the following resolution:-
"That, while congratulating the Strandtown club upon the handsome trophy presented to them by Mr. Williamson, this club will not officially take any action whatever in regard to it, or recognise the competition as being one for the championship of Belfast.
This proved to be the death knell for any competition being held in 1905. The Strandtown club returned to the issue at a committee meeting on the 21st November 1905, held immediately after the club's AGM. It was agreed that an invitation should be sent to the secretaries of the other chess clubs in Belfast to have a consultation as to the best method of competing for the Williamson Shield. However, this approach did not resolve the difficulties, as is clear from this report of a Strandtown committee meeting held just over a year later on the 4th December 1906:
It was arranged to play for the Williamson Shield by ticket tournament, the winner to hold the shield for one year, Mr. Chamberlain kindly undertaking to draw up rules for the same.
This meant that the Strandtown club were intending to relegate the Williamson Shield to competition solely within the club. It would appear, however, that this proposal was not carried into effect. Neither the minutes of the Strandtown club nor the local press reports referred to such a competition for the Shield ever having taken place.
Five years passed.
Then the minute book of the Strandtown club reports that the AGM of the club for 1911 held on the 12th October finally got round to drawing up rules for a ticket tournament for the club's members. No mention is made of the Williamson Shield being the prize, and it is soon becomes clear why. The next entry in the minute book reports on a meeting of club secretaries [the precise date of the meeting is not given, but it must have taken place not later than the middle of November] to sort out the details of competitive events in the Belfast area for the 1911-1912 season. The report of the meeting includes the following item:
[I]t was agreed that Strandtown be asked to draw up a set of rules governing the competition for the Williamson Shield which is to be competed for by two players to be selected from each club.
The Belfast News-Letter reported on the 1st February 1912 a successful outcome to this new attempt to get the Williamson Shield up and running:
At a meeting of the honorary secretaries of the various Belfast chess clubs held on the 29th ult. In the Central Presbyterian Hall it was decided to revive the old scheme to establish a tournament the winner of which should bear the title of chess champion of Belfast. Some years ago Dr. Williamson, a Belfast man, now resident in New Zealand, presented a challenge shield to Strandtown Club for competition each year, possession of the trophy to carry with it the honour of the city championship. A condition, however, was that the games should be played in Strandtown Club Rooms, and as this proved objectionable to the other clubs, the scheme fell through. An arrangement has now been arrived at by which the place of play is left to the competitors themselves, and there is every prospect of having a very interesting series of games in the near future. The conditions may be summarised as follows:- Possession of the shield to be for one year only, ending 31st December; the winner's name to be engraved on the trophy; each of the five clubs to send a representative, each of whom shall play one game with every other draws counting one half; the winner of the highest number of points to have possession of the shield, and to be styled Chess Champion of Belfast. In the event, however, of only half a point separating the two highest scores, a match of three games is to be played between these two persons, the result to be added to the points already scored; if a draw results the two shall continue playing until one defeats the other. Any dispute is to be settled by a committee consisting of the five honorary secretaries.
By the end of the month, competition for the Williamson Shield finally started.
