The Staunton Chessmen

The Staunton Chessmen

The Staunton chessmen is the standard pattern for chess pieces used in all world chess federation and United States Chess Federation events.

Before 1849, there was no standard chess set or design. Original army designs representing play on a field of battle became chess pieces played in a royal court. The original chessmen of shah, counselor, infantry, cavalry, elephant, and chariot evolved into king, queen, pawn, knight, bishop, and rook.

As chess clubs and tournaments began to appear all over the world in the 18th and 19th century, it became necessary to use a standardized set (and rules) that would enable players from different cultures and countries to play chess without getting confused on what chess piece it was.

On March 1, 1849 the “Staunton” pattern was first registered by printer and editor Nathaniel Cooke. Prior to that, the pieces most commonly used were called the St. George design, followed by the English Barleycorn, the Northern Upright or Edinburgh (designed by Lord John Hay in the 1840s), the Regency, the Calvert, Lund and Merrifield designs.

Cooke registered his wooden chess pattern at the United Kingdom Patent Office (patent No. 58607) under the Ornamental Designs Act of 1842. The title of the registration was “Ornamental Design for a set of Chess-Men.” The registration was limited to Class II, which were articles mostly made from wood. The registration was good for only three years, and not renewable.

Cooke looked at a variety of popular chess sets (the Northern Upright is the closest in appearance to the Staunton design) and kept in mind their common traits. As an architect, he also looked the Victorian London’s neoclassical architecture and noticed there was a renewed interest in the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome after the rediscovery of Pompeii in the 18th century.

The design of the knight came from the head of a Greek horse of the Eglin Marbles in the British Museum (brought to the museum in 1806). The head of a horse of Selene, the Moon Goddess, came from the east pediment of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. The Parthenon had a sculpture of horses drawing the chariot of Selene. That sculpture was controversially removed by Thomas Bruce (1766-1841), the 7th earl of Eglin, when he was ambassador to the Ottoman empire between 1799 and 1803. In 1816, he donated these “Eglin Marbles” to the British Museum.

In September 1849 the manufacturing rights were bought by John Jaques of London, workers of ivory and fine woods. His company also invented table tennis (originally called Ping-Pong), croquet, Snakes & Ladders, and Tiddly Winks.

Nathaniel Cooke was quite involved in the business of Jaques of London. Cooke’s daughter would marry John Jaques II in the 1850s. The sets were originally made in boxwood and ebony. The Full Size set was weighted for better stability. Later sets were available in ivory, first available in April, 1850, and unweighted. The unweighted king was 3.5 inches in size for the standard size. The weighted king was 4.4 inches in size for the Full Size. Jaques removed much of the decorative features that topped earlier chess patterns, and was able to manufacture the new design at less cost. The king was represented by a crown and the queen was represented by a coronet.

Some other features of the original Jaques set included a removable king’s cross and the knight made up of two pieces, the head and the base, which were screwed together. Every Jacques set had an imprinted “Jaques London” on the rim of the white king.

On September 8, 1849 the first wooden chess sets from Jaques was available. The first sets actually had a different pattern to the King’s Rook and King’s Knight that distinguished it from the Queen’s Rook and the Queen’s Knight. A crown emblem was stamped onto a rook and knight of each side to identify the positioning on to the king’s side of the board. That design failed to stick and was later removed.

Howard Staunton (1810-1874) saw Cooke’s chess set design and appreciated its simplicity. On the same day that the Jaques chess sets were available in London, Howard Staunton recommended and endorsed the sets in the September 8, 1949 issue of Illustrated London News. Staunton had a chess column in the Illustrated London News from 1845 until 1874, Nathaniel Cooke was Staunton’s editor at the Illustrated London News. The ad that appeared in the newspaper called it Mr. STAUNTON’s pattern. It said:

“A set of Chessmen, of a pattern combining elegance and solidity to a degree hitherto unknown, has recently appeared under the auspices of the celebrated player Mr. Staunton….The pieces generally are fashioned with convenience to the hand; and it is to be remarked, that while there is so great an accession to elegance of form, it is not attained at the expense of practical utility. Mr. Staunton’s pattern adopts but elevates the conventional form; and the base of the Pieces being of a large diameter, they are more steady than ordinary sets.”

Later, Staunton began endorsing the set and had his signature on the box of Staunton chess pieces. One of Staunton’s chess books was given free with every box of Staunton chess set. Staunton aggressively promoted the Staunton chess set. This may have been the first time that a celebrated name was used to promote a commercial product.

There is some speculation that Nathaniel Cooke was not the actual designer of the “Staunton” chess set. Cooke was also editor of the Illustrated London News, the world’s first illustrated newspaper. One of its major contributors was Staunton, who had a chess column.

Cooke may only have been an agent acting on behalf of the real designer, Jaques, his brother-in-law. And Jaques was looking for a way to increase his profits by creating a cheaper, more efficient design that appealed to the majority of chess players. So he got Staunton, the most famous chess player in England, to endorse the design.

The design was a huge success, and the Jaques company made a profit on the chess set. The simple, unadorned forms of the Staunton set made it cheap and easy to produce.

On August 11, 1852, Nathaniel Cooke entered into an arrangement with Howard Staunton to use Staunton’s name and facsimile signature on the labels that came with each set.

The original Staunton design has gone through different versions over the years. Some of the distinguishing characteristics that define a Staunton design include the following: the king is topped with a Formee cross and is the tallest piece; the queen is topped by a crown and ball; the bishop has a split top; the knight is a horse head; the rook is a squat castle turret. The shape of the pawn may have derived from the balconies of London Victorian buildings.

Later designs of the Jaques Staunton chessmen included slightly taller queens and pawns. Also, the weight of the chessmen was increased.

By the 1920s, the Staunton design was required as the only authorized design by worldwide chess organizations, and endorsed by FIDE, the world chess federation, in 1924

In 1935 the Jaques company no longer made ivory Staunton sets.

During World War II Jacques was asked by the British government to mass produce chess sets for the troops. The factory was later bombed by the Germans and destroyed.

At the start of the 1978 World Championship match in Baguio, Philippines there wasn’t a Staunton chess set in the city. Someone had to drive to Manila to find a Staunton chess set, which arrived just 15 minutes before the start of the scheduled match.