Dick Boxall    (1928-1992)

Gerry Walsh writes :

The chess world was sad to learn of the death of Dick Boxall in Basingstoke District Hospital earlier this year.

Dick was born in South London; unlike most young players today he did not learn to play chess at school but at the age oftwelve from his father in an air raid shelter during the early years of the war.

He joined Streatham & Brixton Chess Club in 1950 and was Club Secretary until he moved to Basingstoke. a move which was necessary for Dick to continue his career with the Automobile Association. Dick had tried to work in his father's stockbroking firm ,and then for an insurance company before a job in the administration section of the.AA.where he continued until taking early retirement in 1991.

He controlled his first tournament at Twickenhamin the early 1950s and was also one of the Controllers at the successful Bognor Regis tournaments run by Norman Fishlock-Lomax in the 1950s and 1960s.

Oxford 1967 was Dick's first British Championship and up to the 1987 Championship at Swansea there were only a few occasions when he was not part of the Arbiters' team. The British Chess Federation awarded him the title of Senior Arbiter in 1982.

In 1990 & 91 he officiated at the Hastings Weekend Congress in place of his great friend the late Harry Baines who had died in 1989. .

Dick was always linked with chess activity in Basingstoke and he will be particularly remembered as the founder of the one day events in the town.

In 1989 Richard Edward Boxall received the B.C.F. President's Award for Services to Chess.