In the previous post Malcolm Barker, Sean had queried Barker’s attribution of a photograph of him in play against Walter Marshall (and being watched by Sir George Thomas and W. Ritson Morry) to the 1949 Glorney Cup, because the contemporary newspaper reports had Jonathan Penrose drawing against Marshall, and Barker winning against J. Murphy in the England – Wales match.
I believe I have found the event at which the Barker-Marshall-Thomas-Morry photograph was taken. As a preamble, I should point out that the only time Barker and W. Marshall both played in the Glorney Cup was in the 1949 renewal. So, if the photo was not taken then, the country designations on the nameplates affixed to the table suggested some other international event. So my thoughts turned to the 1950 Birmingham Junior [under 20] International Tournament (something of a forerunner for the first World Junior Championship held the next year, also in Birmingham except for first two rounds in Coventry). [Part 1 of Neil Blackburn’s trio of articles on Barker had provided a crosstable of this event, taken from a modern tournament booklet – more on that publication below.]
On pages 182-185 of the June 1950 issue of the British Chess Magazine (Volume LXX) there is a report on the Birmingham Junior International by none other than Walter Marshall! His report includes a full swiss crosstable. This one has more detail than the crosstable in Blackburn’s article and shows that Marshall drew with Barker in Round 1. The junior international was the specially arranged centrepiece of a congress celebrating the jubilees of the Warwickshire Chess Association and Erdington Chess Club. Sir George Thomas was present at a dinner held on the first day of the Congress to welcome the foreign competitors. Sir George, who was a keen supporter of junior chess, may well have been present for more than just the first day but for our purposes this is very helpful information. Ritson Morry had suggested the idea of holding a junior international and was the organiser of the whole Jubilee Congress.
Turning now to that modern tournament booklet mentioned above. It is Tony Gillam’s “First International Junior 1950: First World Junior Championship Birmingham 1951,” Number 103 in his Rare and Unpublished Chess Tournaments and Matches Series. Confirmation can be found there that the first round and the afore-mentioned welcome dinner were both held on the 3rd April – so we now seem to have proof positive that the photograph was taken on that date of Sir George, Ritson Morry and two local boys [Barker was a true local and Marshall was at that time studying at Birmingham University], who coincidentally were playing each other in the first round.
Barker had speculated that one of the cups in the photograph was the Glorney Cup but Sean would seem to have debunked that theory. The various events of the Birmingham Jubilee Easter Congress took place alongside the junior international, so the large trophy at Barker’s right elbow might be the “Midland Adult Championship” (as described by Marshall in his BCM report) won that year by R.W. Bonham ahead of B.H. Wood, A. Phillips and P. Swinnerton-Dyer.