Papers on Ravenscroft, Hawes, Watson, and Tate, and GCPCC Report

We have a mixed bag of updates and new materials this month.

Bob Meadley continues his invaluable historical research on Australian chess problemists. He has put together two informative papers about some of our best-known composers, and also sent a third prepared by Ken Fraser:

• Frank Ravenscroft and Frederick T. Hawes' Chess Problems

• C.G.M. Watson: Chess Master, Insurance Officer and Problemist

• Chess Problems by Henry Tate

The fecund partnership of Ravenscroft and Hawes had produced consistently high-quality works, and Bob has gathered these joint compositions in one accessible place. The current Problem of the Week (No.222) by the pair was picked from this album, which contains plenty of works that could have been lost otherwise. Watson's paper incorporates his biographical information, OTB chess activities, and a selection of his compositions. Below I quote a joke problem he published a century ago. Tate's problem collection was transcribed from his original notebooks by Ken Fraser, the late curator of the Anderson Chess Collection in the State Library of Victoria. Bob has added the diagrams and updated the solutions to algebraic notation. You can view or download these documents in the PDF format on the Chess Problemists page of this site.

As promised in the previous column, Nigel Nettheim has completed his Report on the 2015 Guided Composing tourney. This is a very readable account that covers the conception and running of the new event. Check it out here: Guided Chess Problem Composing Competition Report.

Over the past few months I have been polishing the look of this website, primarily for users of hand-held devices. Previously the site's layout was quite messy when viewed on mobile phones with low screen resolutions; now it looks at least decent (though the site logo is still cut off and only half visible). One unexpected effect of fixing the more serious formatting issues is that, on small mobile screens, the chess diagrams have become variable in size depending on the amount of text next to them!