was listed as a Surveyor of Mines, so there was ambition in the family. By 1870 Robert’s sister Annie, 13 years his senior, had married John Rundell and they lived in London, so when young Robert went to study medicine at Guys Hospital, he was able to lodge with his relatives, which probably made his higher education financially possible.

Very soon after qualifying he married a Cornishwoman, Emily Jane from Launceston, and by 1880 they had 4 children under 5, though they put a quick stop to all that. The eldest child was born back in Cornwall, in St. Ives in 1875 and the following year Walter Robert was born in Wistanston, a small village between Shropshire’s Long Mynd and Wenlock Edge and his patients came from the nearbyvillages described so succinctly by A. E. Houseman …

“Clunton & Clunbury, Clungunford & Clun

Are the quietest places under the sun”.

Which suggests that he would have had to get experience through a series of temporary posts, but idyllic though these places undoubtedly were, he was keen to get back to London and by 1881 he was practicing as a GP in the Seven Sisters Road.

A decade later he was living at 61, Acre Lane, Lambeth and was listed as a “Surgeon in General Practice”. By 1901 they had moved to 282, Balham High Road.

His early chess career was spent in Surrey, joining first the Tufnell Park Liberal Club and then Brixton. In the season in which they won the League championship his personal score was 14½ / 15. He