In Memoriam: Tony Raven and Jimmy Adams

With great sadness the Club announces the recent deaths of two of its three honorary members.

Tony Raven died in April just short of his 94th birthday. He joined the Club in the 1950’s and served as Secretary from the mid 1960’s until 1984. While a player of only average club strength he was liked by all who knew him. He lived a quiet life in South London and was a freelance publisher by trade - this is amply demonstrated by the piece he wrote for the Club’s centenary publication about his time at Metropolitan 70 years ago -,a wonderful read. In his latter years he played less but was a regular visitor to the September lightning tournament.

Jimmy Adams has also died, aged 79. Of course, he was a very strong player, winning the London Amateur Championship in the 1970’s with a 100% score. From 1979 he was the Club’s top board for about ten years and he counted many titled players among his victims. His Elo rating was around 2300, but ‘he could be much stronger than that’. Jimmy’s real contribution to chess was as a widely acclaimed author- his meticulously researched works on Chigorin and Breyer (the early Hungarian GM) received the highest acclaim in scholarly circles. Latterly, he was the editor of Chess magazine for about 20 years.

Both will be sadly missed.