T.G. Cranston: Correcting and improving the record

The first port of call to seek out biographical details about any chess player is Jeremy Gaige’s Chess Personalia. The entry for T. G. Cranston is brief, telling us only that he was born in Dublin circa 1877 and was Irish champion in 1922 and 1931. No information is provided as to when he died or indeed what were the full names behind his initials T.G.

If you look at Gino Di Felice’s Chess Results series of books, he refers throughout to Timothy G. Cranston. A number of chess databases follow this naming, though some vary with G. Timothy. In fact, here lies a clue to the fact that our Cranston was not named Timothy. There is an American player, G. Timothy Cranston, born 1953 according to the FIDE Ratings website, with whom the Irish Cranston has been confused.

So we need to go back to the primary sources.  T.G. Cranston was a member of Dublin Chess Club and its Honorary Secretary from 1919 to 1947. It may well be that the records still held by that club (which I have not had an opportunity to consult – hopefully some day) would tell us his full name, Unfortunately the published record – Professor Luce’s A History of the Dublin Chess Club, written for the club’s centenary year 1967 – does not usually give forenames in its complete listing of all members’ names and Cranston is only referred to as T.G. there, so I needed to research contemporary newspaper reports.

Despite the fact that Cranston competed in a great many of the important Irish chess events for over 30 years, my search in the reports of those events for a reference to his forenames proved unavailing. However, T.B. Rowland (one of the great organisers in Irish chess) produced a lengthy piece entitled Chess in Ireland for the Irish Times of 9^th December 1922 and in it the Honorary Secretary of Dublin CC is revealed to be Thomas George Cranston.

In the Irish Times for the 19^th April 1954 I found a report on the funeral of “Thomas George Cranston, well-known in the paper trade and chess circles.” A little further research in the Irish Times, this time for the 16^th April 1954 found a Death Notice, which tells us that Cranston had died the previous day, the 15^th April 1954.