Agnes Stevenson

{{Short description|British chess player (1873–1935)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}} {{Use British English|date=August 2019}} {{distinguish|Angus Stevenson}} {{Infobox chess player |name = Agnes Lawson-Stevenson |image =Agnes Stevenson 1931.jpg |caption =Stevenson in 1931 |birthname = Agnes Bradley Lawson |nickname = |country = Britain |birth_date = c. 23 November 1873 |birth_place = Stranton, Hartlepool, England |death_date = {{death date and age|1935|8|20|1873|11|23|df=y}} |death_place = Poznań, Poland |title = |worldchampion = |womensworldchampion = |rating = |peakrating = |ranking = |peakranking = }} '''Agnes Lawson-Stevenson''' (born Agnes Bradley Lawson, November 1873<ref>{{cite web|author=Edward Winter|url=http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter92.html#7565._Agnes_Stevenson_C.N.|title=Agnes Stevenson|date=April 2010}}</ref> – 20 August 1935)<ref>{{citation | last=Gaige | first=Jeremy | author-link=Jeremy Gaige | year=1987 | title=Chess Personalia, A Biobibliography | publisher=McFarland | isbn=0-7864-2353-6 | pages=407–8}}</ref> was a British chess player. She was four-time British Ladies' Champion (1920, 1925, 1926, 1930), and married to Rufus Henry Streatfeild Stevenson, home news editor of the ''British Chess Magazine'', secretary of the Southern Counties Chess Union and match captain of the Kent County Chess Association.<ref>Times [London, England] 21 August 1935, page 10.</ref>

She took 3rd at Meran 1924 (unofficial European women's championship, Helene Cotton and Edith Holloway won). After the tournament three of the participants (Holloway, Cotton and Stevenson) defeated three others (Paula Wolf-Kalmar, Gülich and Pohlner) in a double-round London vs. Vienna match.<ref>[http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter31.html Unofficial European women's champion]</ref>

She was thrice the Women's World Championship Challenger. She tied for 9-11th at London 1927, took 5th at Hamburg 1930, and took 3rd at Prague 1931.<ref>[http://www.ajedrezdeataque.com/11%20Ajedrez%20Femenino/Palmares/Cto_Mundo.htm Campeonato Mundo femenino]</ref> On the way to play in the 1935 Women's World Championship, she left the aircraft in Poznań to complete a passport check. She returned to the aircraft from the front and ran into the propeller and was killed.<ref>[http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/arch30.htm Britbase Chess Archive]</ref><ref>Times [London, England] 21 August 1935, page 10.</ref>

Her husband was remarried in 1937 to Women's World Chess Champion, Vera Menchik, who was herself killed just a few years later in 1944.

==References== <references/>

==Further reading== *{{citation | periodical=British Chess Magazine | volume=1935 | pages=393, 454–455}}

<gallery> File:AgnesStevensonClock.JPG|Agnes Stevenson Memorial Fund Clock </gallery>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stevenson, Agnes}} Category:1935 deaths Category:British female chess players Category:20th-century British chess players Category:1873 births Category:20th-century British women Category:20th-century British sportswomen