Founding chess father
MAKING our next move on the history of Southport Chess Club, we go en passant to sweep through the list of 27 club presidents to focus on the first, which was no other than the amazing surgeon and physician Dr Henry Blumberg, founder of the town’s Children’s Sanatorium – the first such facility in the country.
The early (pre-WWII) Southport Chess Club presidents were, perhaps not surprisingly, among the most distinguished gentlemen in Southport society – surgeons and physicians, doctors and dentists, solicitors, leading businessmen, and men of the cloth.
However none of them, it can be debated, had the same prestige as the chess club’s founding father.
Blumberg was born in 1828 in
Kassa, Prague (although some say in Ranhem, Germany), and then this very able, accomplished and pleasant young man came to live in London after the Revolution of 1848.
However, he returned to his native homeland a few years later, where he was educated at the universities of Vienna and Prague, becoming qualified as an MD in Prague in 1855; three years later (1858) he obtained an English degree in London (LRCP) while living in the capital.
After finding his way on to the UK Medical Registers as an MD, from January 1 1859 he became a homeopath and an anti-vivisectionist, and was on the Royal Commission. He set up his first practice in Macclesfield before coming to Southport in 1860, and his long association of more than 30 years with the town began.
On March 8 1860, at a public meeting held in a classroom at Holy Trinity School, it was decided to form a sanatorium for children, aged between four and 13, after being promoted by Dr Blumberg.
former patient once recalled how: “They used to take us for a ride in the horse and cart in the morning and parade us around the town – we now know that they were trying to get some support.”
This new sanatorium was based on an earlier homeopathic children’s sanatorium that had opened in 1850, originally within a house, but its work was taken forwards by Dr Blumberg.
The purpose of the sanatorium was “to deliver the recuperation of disadvantaged children from industrial manufacturing towns”, and the admirable venture quickly attracted strong local support (thanks to the happy children waving from the horse carts) and was partly funded by the Cotton Districts Convalescent Fund.
It took some 18 years to set up but eventually the handsome new “hospital”, which became known as The
North of England Children’s Sanatorium, situated on the north side of Hawkshead Street South, was opened in 1878 – its objective being “to provide a temporary home, good food, nursing, and medical attention, for children recovering from illnesses’ and other infectious diseases”.
By the turn of the century there were about 1,000 children passing
Athrough the institution every year. The sanatorium was eventually taken over by the health authority and continued to be utilised into the 1970s as “a facility for geriatric patients”.
The 1861 Census reveals that the 31-year-old unmarried medic had his first Southport home at 8 (Higher) Bold Street, where he had three servants, and five years later he married.
However by 1871 he had moved to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and was then recorded with a young Welsh wife, 26-year-old Frances (born in Llangennos, Carmarthen) and two young sons, Henry jnr, three, who was born in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, and their one-year-old, Samuel, who came along in Cheltenham.
As well as being a noted chess player Henry Blumberg was a distinguished linguist, able to converse freely and correctly in eight European languages.
few years after his arrival in this country he transcribed mid-Victorian poetry chiefly from German into English between 1860 and 1879, publishing a 132-page volume of very pretty poetry in 1864 (published by Williams & Norgate), and an annotated biobibliography of his work produced by Catherine W Reilly (Mansell, of London).
Dr Blumberg returned to settle in
ASouthport from about 1880, setting up his practice at Hoghton Terrace, 65 Hoghton
Street (near Union Street), and in 1881 the 50-year-old Henry Blumberg is with his 36-year-old wife and two sons, Henry, 13, and Samuel, 11, now joined by Cheltenham-born Gustav, 10, and two daughters, Rosalie, eight, and Edith, five, both born in Germany – Bonn and Hreusnach respectively.
The year 1880 was also when Southport appointed its first batch of JPs – Justices of the Peace, or magistrates – and Henry Blumberg and his good friend Samuel Boothroyd were among them.
Henry was a quick, lively, and brilliant chess player and back in 1866 he played several games at the Westminster Chess Club with the well-known Staunton, “whom he vanquished easily, receiving the odds of pawn and two moves”, according to one report. He was regarded as one of the best amateur chess players in England, and represented Lancashire.
On October 13 1883 the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News reported: “A chess club has just been opened at Southport, under the presidency of Dr Blumberg, JP, well known as a brilliant amateur, and still better known as a poet, lecturer, and medical practitioner.”
On December 23 of that year, he took part in a simultaneous display by the master chessman Joseph Blackburne.
He moved his family to the impressive Warley House at 13 Duke Street (Nelson Street corner) in 1887, where he lived for the next 13 years. The property had been the home of his good friend and fellow JP, Samuel Boothroyd, who was Southport’s mayor four times.
The last Census he appears in is 1891 in Southport, aged 60, along with his wife, 46. Samuel, 21, was now a student of music, and Gustav, 20, an art student; also at home were daughters Rosalie, 18, and Edith, 15.
Two years later Henry died at Warley House on the morning of June 5 1893, aged 64, leaving a widow and five children.
The probate was read in Liverpool on July 19, the effects of £13,406 12s 5d addressed to William Ross, school
WWI officers, above, including
Henry D’Armin Blumberg, seated, fourth from left,
and, left, the enlarged image of
Capt Blumberg; Blumberg in dress uniform, right; the first club meeting included blindfold exhibition games
by Joseph H Blackburne, far right, arguably
the strongest tournament player
of the day
master, and Arthur
McDouall Hannay, solicitor.
Warley House later became a hotel of that name but is now the new Duke’s Folly Hotel. Following the death of Henry Snr his son took over the home surgery business straight away as physician and surgeon – a little confusing as he has the same Christian name.
The big giveaway is his full name – Henry D’Arnim Blumberg.
Young Henry had studied and qualified in Scotland before becoming a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps (Territorial) and remained at Warley House until after WWI when he moved to Belvidere, 8 Church Street (by the Wright Street corner) – formerly Pilling’s artificial teeth manufacturing business, staying there until he died on Christmas Eve 1932. He also served in France with the
King’s Liverpool and the Royal Engineers.
Henry’s widow, Ella (who he married in 1916), moved to 46 Park Ave
nue (on the Roe Lane corner), while his sister, Rosita, can be found at The
Nook, 20 Preston Road, on the Park Road corner, close to the old Hesketh Park Railway line, and stationmaster’s house.
The Southport Chess Club presi