Cyril Vansittart

Cyril Vansittart, baron Bexley (1852 – 22 January 1887) was an English–Italian chess master.

Born in London, he established a bank in Rome, in 1860.^[1] He twice participated in unofficial Italian Chess Championship (Torneo Nazionale); took 6th at Livorno 1878 (the 2nd Italian National Tournament, Luigi Sprega won),^[2] and played at Venice 1883 but only the first round and his second round games were not counted as forfeits (the 4th Italian National Tournament, Fermo Zannoni won).^[3] Vansittart tied for 18-19th at London 1883 (Vizayanagaram Tournament, Curt von Bardeleben won).^[4]

He had a promising chess library by the early 1880s of 300 volumes and in 1883 purchased for 3,700 francs the late Count Salimbeni’s library of 400 volumes. It had complete runs of The Chess Players Chronicle, Le Palamede and Deutsch Schachzeitung and some marvellous early books. It was considered the finest chess library in Italy. The entire collection was sold to the bookdealer A. Cohn of Berlin. Hoffer’s Chess Monthly of 1887 states that Vansittart died of heart disease aged but 35 with which he had suffered for some time. Chicco in Dizionario says that there was a triple suicide that shocked Rome.^[5]

References

1. ^ http://xoomer.virgilio.it/cserica/scacchi/storiascacchi/Italia/maestri/vansittart.htm
2. ^ http://xoomer.virgilio.it/cserica/scacchi/storiascacchi/tornei/1851-99/1878%20Livorno.htm
3. ^ http://edochess.ca/tournaments/t264.html
4. ^ http://edochess.ca/tournaments/t256.html
5. ^ http://www.cs.unibo.it/~cianca/wwwpages/chesssite/ALetterToBert.pdf

Persondata
Name	Vansittart, Cyril Bexley
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1852
Place of birth
Date of death	22 January 1887
Place of death