History of the London Junior Chess Championships

The London Junior Chess Championships originated in 1924 as the London Boys Championship, right when chess tournaments for juniors started in the 1920s. 

LJCC has a rich history, and reviewing our trophy boards confirms how many top quality players we’ve encouraged at junior level over the years - grandmasters, civil servants, CEOs and cabinet ministers. Below are snippets of stories in LJCC's history. If there is something you would like to share also regarding historical LJCC events, please contact us at history@ljcc.co.uk.

The inaugural event of the London Boys Championships began on 31 December 1923, held at St Bride's Institute, featuring ten participants in an all-play-all tournament. It was a phenomenon at the time - and attracted press attention. You can read more on this very first event here, with a further piece on early events here. These articles are courtesy of founder of Richmond Chess Club Richard James, who himself played and later officiated in LJCC events. Below is the crosstable for the first London Boys' Championships, with J. Allcock declared the London's first Boy champion with an impressive 100% record:

Also pointed out in Richard James' articles, another early winner of the London Boy's Championships, Harry Golombek, was later also British Chess Champion and a famous wartime codebreaker.

Teenagers playing chess was thought rather strange at the time, with their exploits often newsworthy, as shown here involving Leonard Barden, whose chess column in London's Evening Standard was the world's longest running daily chess column. He is also known for presenting "The Master Game" on the BBC and still regularly writes chess columns for The Guardian.

Historical records of early games in the London Boys Championship are difficult to find, though some curiosities do filter through, like this one here, where checkmate occured right as a player's time ran out!

Over the decades, the tournament evolved, increasing the number of age sections. It is believed that the 1957-58 season was the final London Boy's Championships, and when a new sponsor was found it was renamed to the London Junior Chess Championships in the 1959-1960 season. Nowadays girls are of course very welcome (and encouraged) at our events. 

Events in living memory in our archive feature Rachel Reeves (and her older sister Eleanor Reeves), as well as many now household names in chess, including David Howell and Gawain Jones. Though both Howell and Jones did well, winning some (but not all!) events, for many other titled players the London Junior Chess Championships was a stepping stone in their chess career, where one can see their improvements in their results year upon year. Other well known chess enthusiasts also feature, such as Demis Hassabis.

Even more recently, LJCC was disrupted in both 2020 and 2021 by COVID, and we were delighted to put that difficult chapter behind us as we returned to over the board chess in 2022.

The LJCC has been held at many different venues over the years, but since 2002 it has been held at venues from The University of Westminster. Since 2006 the LJCC has been run by The London Junior Chess Championship Charitable Trust, where our aim is to advance education for young people through chess, helping them grow to full maturity as individuals and members of society. We believe our event helps young people develop a myriad of key life skills. We stress the importance of fair play, and sporting behaviour. We encourage independence, we love discussing chess with our young players, and we see many of the same faces every year.

We were delighted to announce that the LJCC Centenary Tournament 2024 has been named ECF Tournament of the Year. We want to thank all those who have supported us over many years. Here is a video commemorating the event. We are so proud of our Congress Manager, our Arbiters, and our Trustees who put so much effort into making the tournament great.  Thank you also to the players and parents who are the beating heart of all our events.

The London Junior Chess Championships awards titles in seven age groups: Under 8, Under 10, Under 12, Under 14, Under 16, Under 18 and Under 21. 

THE LONDON JUNIOR CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP CHARITABLE TRUST
Charity number: 1129010