Forum for John Barrs

History - Moving discussion to where it should be [#2051]

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12.42.51.28: History - Moving discussion to where it should be (2009-11-21 14:16) [#6599]

John F. Having been lucky enough to know John Barrs and having enjoyed his support, I have no wish to dispute his eminence. But as there was a go club in Hastings before he was even born, "father of British go" is a journalistic misnomer that doesn't belong in an objective Wiki.

Anon Senseis Library an objective wiki? Good God! You get that sort of cosy term in a lot of objective repositories though. Can you please point towards any source for the Hastings club? I'm sure you are not making it up, but checking the BGA history pages reveals no mention of it. Is it in Franco Prataresi's book? Ah I see the reference now, but [ext] http://www.gobooks.info/cheshire.html makes it rather dubious. Somebody playing Go in the chess club is hardly a Go Club. [ext] http://www.hastingschessclub.co.uk/hfcheshire.html is more promising, may have formed a club. Is there further info to shed light on this, something exact and explicit?

John F. There is further information but I'm afraid am not prepared to dig it out. Too much effort. I did once, and passed it to Francis Roads for the BGJ, but he chose to ignore it. He was a great fan of John Barrs, too, and maybe wanted to keep the focus on him. I first came across it in Kido. From memory it referred to a club formed in 1912. I think the article may even have been by Matsui. Matsui was a famous go book collector (and also co-author with Segoe Kensaku of the "Meiji Gofu") but he was also active in promoting go overseas, and I imagine he could have got the information from John Barrs himself. They may even had had some professional link. Barrs was an optician and Matsui worked with electron microscopes - not really the same thing, I know, but scientist to scientist...

However, Cheshire was not alone. Even in (as I recall) the 1880s Giles had a go circle in Cambridge, having written the first authoritative paper by an Englishman, although there were other works in English by foreign writers. The famous Basil Hall Chamberlain also wrote about go in the 1880s, and dplomat Sir Harry Parkes used to go to Hoensha at that time, so I would imagine the game was known among a decent number of educated British people.

Recall also that Walter de Havilland wrote about go in his 1910 book. He was not then famous as father of two film stars, of course, but the conjunction of his book and Cheshire's no doubt created a little nexus. Again I'm relying on memory, but I think that for a time de Havilland even played at the Hastings club on visits to the UK (but he learnt go and lived mainly in Japan at the relevant time). He also features in apparently the oldest known game by a Brit, from 1908. This too has been ignored in the BGJ.

Of course we could also go back to Thomas Hyde and Shen Fuzong. After all, Shen's portrait still hangs in the Royal apartments at Windsor. The history of go is one of its strengths, and it could be useful to emphasise its history in the UK. Calling someone in 1930 the "father of British go" implicitly, and I think wrongly, tends to cut off this heritage.

Going back to John Barrs, he was an Olympic weightlifter, and his status in that sport might explain why he initially emphasised it over go.

PS I almost didn't answer. I'm not keen on dealing with anonymous people, and I won't in future.

Anon May I then suggest father of modern British Go might be a better term? I've changed the article to say that and I hope that's acceptable. Looking back on the assembled names, it is clear that ultimately none of them made any lasting impact on the playing of the game in the UK. Yes some people played the game here and there, like Giles with his children. What became of their efforts? They established exactly nothing. I would be interested to track down what the first British Go Club actually was, but I can't be bothered since the British have no interest themselves. I don't really know if I would believe that Kido could be called a reliable source in this instance, since it would clearly be advantageous or desirable for the author to claim that a club existed when in fact a chess club existed where some people played Go occaisionally. Considering Horace's literay output one could be forgiven for wondering why he himself left no trace of the club in his work. So I shall also leave Linton House Wei Chi as the first club for now, no record seems to show otherwise.

 
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