Edith Baird

Edith Elina Helen Winter-Wood Baird, known as Edith Baird, (* 22 February 1859 as Edith Elina Helen Winter-Wood; † 1 February 1924 in Paignton) was a famous English chess composer. She published as Mrs William James Baird.

Chess
By her own account, Baird began playing chess before she was ten years old. Baird created more than 2000 problems from 1888 onwards, more than 750 of them within the first decade. She was the first lady to win prizes in self-mating tournaments. Her compositions received many honours. One of her strongest tournaments was in The Hackney Mercury in 1893, where up to six stones were allowed for three-moves. Baird won first prize ahead of composers Benjamin Glover Laws and Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig Meyer, among others, who were considered strong. She was honoured as Queen of Chess even before 1897. Baird had a particular fondness for retro-analytical chess problems, and her book The Twentieth Century Retractor contains a large number of compositions in this genre. It is the first book ever to deal with the retractor problem genre.

She won a chess silver medal in Sussex in three consecutive years.

Family and private life

Edith Baird
Edith Baird was the daughter of the poet Thomas Winter-Wood, the owner of the Hareston estate at Brixton in the county of Devon, which had been in the family since the eighth year of the reign of King Edward III. After nineteen generations, John Wood left only one daughter for the first time, who married John Winter, a descendant of Admiral William Winter († 1589). Thomas Winter regained the name Wood in November 1850.

Edith Baird's mother was the daughter of Edward Sole and granddaughter of Lieutenant John Sole. She was also very interested in chess.

Edith Baird's brothers E. J. Winter-Wood and Carslake W. Wood were also chess composers.

In 1880 Edith Winter-Wood married Deputy Inspector-General W. J. Baird, M.D., R.N., who received several honours for his work. Baird was involved in politics, where she campaigned for financial independence for women and against violence against animals, both in sport and through animal testing. She was also a good sports archer. She also illuminated and painted. She also wrote poetry.

Baird was described as friendly and charming.

E. J. Winter-Wood
E. J. Winter-Wood (1847-1920) was the older brother of Edith Baird. His father taught him chess while he was still at school. He played at the Boulogne Chess Club in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1858 and received money from his parents for every game he won. He won 118 out of 185 games. In 1868 he joined the City of London Club, where he played regularly for several years. He played twice "blind" against Löwenthal and once against Blackburne. All three games ended in draws.

A few years later he won 23 out of 30 games in a tournament at the Croydon Chess Club. He was a strong correspondence chess player and solver.

Around 1884, E. J. Baird composed his first chess problem. His third was reprinted as number 1 in The Brooklyn Chess Chronicle and was highly praised by critics. From 1886 to 1888 he won first prize in the annual tournament organised by The Sheffield Independent in the three-move category and from 1887 to 1889 he won second prize in the two-move category. He rarely took part in tournaments, but always won a prize. In 1886, his book Chess Souvenirs was published with over 100 of his best exercises. In total, he created at least several hundred problems.

In 1890 he won first prize and a silver cup out of 50 participants in the handicap chess composition tournament organised by the Plymouth Chess Club, of which he was vice-president.

Carslake W. Wood
Carslake W. Wood (1849-1924), born in Harslake, Devonshire, was a brother of Edith Baird. He learnt to play chess as soon as he could tell the pieces apart. After spending some time travelling abroad, he settled with his maternal uncle, Major Sole of the 5th West York Militia, in Torquay, where he founded a chess club. In 1888 he moved to Plymouth. After a chess club was founded there, Wood was appointed honorary treasurer and secretary. He resigned from these posts in 1894. Around 1882 he began composing chess. By 1897, around one hundred of his problems, all of them two-move problems, had been published. He won prizes in solving tournaments, but did not take part in any composition tournaments. Nevertheless, his problems were considered outstanding. In the Plymouth Chess Club's Gambit Tournament in 1896, Wood won all eighteen games.

He published weekly "Chess Notes" in the Western Morning News.

Lilian Baird
Edith Baird had a daughter named Lilian, born around 1881, who was also a chess composer. By the age of thirteen, she had already created more than 70 problems, which were favourably reviewed by most critics. She also wrote poetry and painted.

Source: de.wikipedia.org

Die Schwalbe, Issue 235, February 2009 wrote:

"The undisputed Queen of Chess since the 90s of the century before last was Mrs W. J. Baird (22.2.1859-1.2.1924). The two books she published in luxurious editions, Seven Hundred Chess Problems (1902), which contains only her own compositions, and The Twentieth Century Retractor - Chess Fantasies and Letter Problems (1907) - this volume contains a selection of 300 further compositions and is enriched with Shakespeare quotations - are jewels in any chess library and coveted collector's items."