Joseph Henry Blackburne was one of the world’s strongest players in the 1880s, and his bold, uncompromising play earned him the nickname “The Black Death”. Below, I explore his life and games.
Photo: Cleveland Public Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Table of contents:
Biography
Early life
Joseph Henry Blackburne was born in Manchester, England in 1841. He had two younger siblings, although his younger brother died when Joseph was about 5 years old. His childhood proved difficult, as he also lost his mother roughly 10 years later.
Blackburne gained an interest in chess after being inspired by Morphy’s tour of Europe in 1858. After improving his game for three years, he played a match in 1861 against Edward Pindar, then the Manchester Chess Club Champion. Blackburne, however, was not yet ready for such a challenge, and lost the match 5-0. Despite the result, this was excellent experience for Blackburne.
Manchester Club Champion
This experience helped him to improve so quickly that, when the pair played a second match just three months later, Blackburne won the match by the one-sided score of 5-1. The following year, he won the title of Manchester Chess Club Champion ahead of both Pindar and the experienced German-British master Bernhard Horwitz.
1862
1862 was also the year in which Blackburne participated in his first international tournament: the British Chess Association Congress, held in London. The field was strong, and included famous names such as Anderssen, Paulsen and Steinitz. Blackburne finished on 5/14 in 10th place. This opportunity to compete at a strong international tournament, at a time when these were still quite rare, was likely very beneficial to Blackburne’s development as a player.
Interestingly, also in 1862, Blackburne lost a match to Steinitz (6-2) and participated in a club match between Manchester and Liverpool. There he won 3-0 against Wellington. That same year, Blackburne lost his job working in a warehouse, and around this time he became a professional chess player.
In 1865, Blackburne married Eleanor Driscoll and added the e to his surname.
International success
The next few years saw Blackburne begin to see the rewards of his work on chess. He competed at Dundee 1867, which has the distinction of being only the third international tournament in chess history. There he finished a respectable 5th, behind Neumann, Steinitz, MacDonnell and de Vere. His performance there is also remembered for his victory over Steinitz.
The following year, Blackburne took first place at the British Chess Championship, becoming the national champion. In 1870, he shared 3rd place with Neumann at Baden-Baden, behind only Anderssen and Steinitz, but scored 1,5/2 against Steinitz in their individual games.
Vienna 1873
1873, however, saw Blackburne record his greatest success yet. Vienna 1873 boasted an impressive lineup of players, with Steinitz, Blackburne, Anderssen, Rosenthal, Bird, Paulsen and others all taking part. In this incredibly strong field, Blackburne went into the last round with chances of taking tournament victory. However, he lost to Rosenthal, and Steinitz thus caught up, resulting in a tie for first place. Steinitz would go on to win the playoff match, and tournament victory overall. Despite this, Blackburne’s impressive performance and strong result earned him the nickname “The Black Death”.
However, the next few years were difficult for Blackburne. His wife died in 1874, and one of his children is thought to have died the following year.
London, Paris and Wiesbaden
In 1876, Blackburne remarried, to Beatrice Lapham, and competed at the Simpson’s Divan tournament in London. Although the field was quite strong, and included Zukertort, Potter, and MacDonnell, Blackburne proved his strength by finishing clear first. At the strong international tournament in Paris in 1878, Blackburne recorded another success, finishing 3rd. Only Zukertort and Winawer finished ahead of him.
1880 saw Blackburne share 1st place with Englisch and Schwarz in Wiesbaden. That same year, Blackburne got married for the third time, to Mary Jane Goodway, following the death of his second wife.
Blackburne’s greatest victory: Berlin 1881
In 1881, Blackburne played an interesting match against Gunsberg, where Gunsberg was given a two-point advantage at the start of the match. Despite this two-point head start, Blackburne went on to win the match by the score of 8,5-7,5, despite Gunsberg’s two extra points. This is even more impressive when considering that Gunsberg would go on to become a World Championship Challenger in 1890.
The strong international tournament at Berlin in 1881 is considered to be Blackburne’s greatest achievement. In a field which included Zukertort, Winawer, Chigorin and Paulsen and Mason, amongst others, Blackburne took clear 1st place with 14/16. He finished an astonishing three whole points clear of Zukertort in 2nd. Blackburne had clearly become one of the world’s strongest players.
A decade at the top
This was the start of Blackburne’s most successful decade. He took 6th place at Vienna 1882, while 1883 saw him finish 3rd at London (behind Steinitz and Zukertort) and 2nd at Nuremberg (behind Winawer). He also shared 2nd place at Hamburg 1885, behind only Gunsberg.
Blackburne then shared 1st place with Burn at the 2nd British Chess Association Congress in 1886, before winning the playoff match. An impressive 4th at New York 1889 (behind Chigorin, Weiss and Gunsberg) and an even more impressive 2nd at Manchester 1890 (behind only Tarrasch) rounded out an incredibly successful decade.
Conquering age and later years
Now entering the sixth decade of his life, age began to take its toll, and Blackburne’s results were less impressive in the 1890s and onwards. However, at the super-tournament at Hastings 1895, he finished on a solid 10,5/21 in a field full of the world’s strongest players and defeated the World Champion Lasker, at the age of 53. Four years later, at London 1899, he finished 6th, and won another game against the World Champion.
Blackburne continued to compete at a high level into the new century, at events like Ostend 1905 and 1906, as well as various cable matches between England and America. He even competed at the famous St Petersburg tournament in 1914 where, at the age of 72, he drew against Alekhine, Bernstein and Rubinstein and defeated Nimzowitsch and Gunsberg. Later that year, he shared 1st place with Yates at the British Championship in Chester.
Despite the amazing longevity of his chess career, age would eventually take its toll on his health. He suffered a stroke in 1923, and died of a heart attack the following year, at the age of 82.
Legacy
Today Blackburne is remembered as one of the world’s strongest players in the 1880s and for his exhibitions and blindfold simuls. His bold attacking style earned him both the respect of his colleagues and the nickname “The Black Death”.
Game Analysis
In 1879, Blackburne won an instructive game against James Mason in their match at Simpson’s Divan.
Lessons from this game:
- It is always useful to identify a piece which is not doing much, and to move it to its ideal square. In this game, 22. Ne2! begins the knight’s journey toward the outpost on e6.
- An attack on the wing is often best met by a counterattack in the centre.
- A rook lift is a powerful way to bring a rook into an attack along the 3rd rank. In this game, 19. Rg3 is a good example.
Puzzles
Blackburne – Paulsen, Vienna 1873
Blackburne – Winawer, Berlin 1881
Schallopp – Blackburne, London 1886
Bird – Blackburne, London 1888
Solutions
Further Reading
To find more about Blackburne’s life and games, the following are useful sources:
Blackburne’s chessgames.com page,
his chess.com page,
this chess.com article by Bill Wall,
this chess.com article by Batgirl,
this chessbase article by Eugene Manlapao,
this chesshistory.com article by Edward Winter,
this chesshistory.com article by Edward Winter,
and this britishchessnews.com article.
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