Hampshire’s ace chess historian Graham Stuart contacted us to say he had discovered when the DCCA was formed – 1923.

As noted in Bulletin 21 on the Dorset Chess Championship we knew that the DCCA was formed no later than 1929 but until now had no record of when it first came into being.  We are therefore very grateful to Graham and his detective work!

Graham found a couple of references of which the more interesting is in the 2nd November 1923 edition of the Somerset Guardian which reports on a match between Dorset and Somerset, noting along the way that “The Dorset County Chess Association has only been formed a few weeks”.

Of course, most of Graham’s work relates to Hampshire chess and he maintains an excellent website that is well worth a read: Hampshire Chess History Website. There are even a few current Dorset players mentioned along the way!