WHO INVENTED THE CUNNINGHAM GAMBIT

CURIOUS CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY
by W. W.(ayte)
The British Chess Magazine, March 1888


We had long been aware that the answer to the question here proposed was complicated 
by the existence of two contemporary Alexander Cunninghams whom, on the other hand, 
some persons had identified as one; but we had no opportunity of seeing the evidence 
on which a decision could be based. Now, however, the last published volume of Mr. Leslie 
Spephen's Dictionary of National Biography has for the first time brought the material 
into an accessible shape: the lives of the two men having been written by Mr. H. Morse 
Stephens, and their separate individuality proved to demonstration. While the subject 
is not treated from the Chess-player's point of view, the fact is recorded that both 
were known as strong players; but the details given leave no doubts as to which of 
the two occupied the higher rank in the Chess world, and confirm the conclusion 
already reached by independent inquirers. Following Mr. Morse Stephens, we 
distinguish the two men as "the critic" and "the historian".



Alexander Cunningham the critic was the son of the Rev. John Cunningham, minister 
of Cumnock, Ayrshire, and was born probably in 1655 or between that date and 1660. 
He inherited from his father a small landed estate called Block, and is sometimes 
called :Cunningham from Block" for the sake of distinction.He was educated partly 
in Holland, and became tutor to a son of the Duke of Queensberry, by whose influence 
he was choosen Professor of Civil Law in the University of Edinburgh about 1698. 



The change of government in 1710 produced in Edinburgh as elsewhere a municipality 
devoted to the tories i. e. Jacobites, and the corporation asserted an ancient right 
(now of course extinct) and deprived Cunningham of his professorship. He then left 
Scotland and established himself at the Hague, where he lived on a handsome pension 
granted him by the Duke of Queensberry, and devoted himself to Chess and the classics. 
In this last capacity he published an able but malevolent criticism of Bentley's Horace, 
and an edition of that author which we have ourselves met with; and he prepared a Virgil 
and a Phaedrus which did not see the light until after his death. But it was rather 
as a Chess-player than sa a scholar that he was famous at the Hague; in this quality 
he was visited by great players from all parts of Europe. He died at the Hague in 
December 1730, and his valuable library was brought to Scotland the there dispersed. 
He left no children, and the estate of Block passed to his collateral descendants 
and remained for some generations in the family.



Alexander Cunningham the historian was born in 1654, the son of Rev. Alexander 
Cunningham, minister of Ettrick; was educated at Selkirk school and in Holland, 
and was travelling tutor first to Lord Hyndford and subsequently to the Marquis 
of Lorne, afterwards the great Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, well known to readers 
of "The Heart of Midlothian". During the reigns of William III. and Anne he was 
employed by the Whigs in subordinate political work, and was frequently consulted 
by the farmers of the Union of 1707. His last namesake he suffered by the overthrow 
of the Whigs in 1710, an again betook himself to tutoring: but onthe accession 
of George I. he had reward and was appointed British Envoy to Venice. In 1720 he 
retired on a pension and returned to London, where he occupied himself in writing 
a detailed history of the two reigns in which he had been behind the scenes in 
politics, and where he died in 1737. His "History of Great Britain from the Revolution 
to the Accession of George I" was written in Latin, one of the latest examples, 
we believe, of the use of that language for such purposes in modern times; and 
it remained in MS. until 1787, when it was translated into English and published 
by a Dr. Thomson. This history is said to be an authority of the first order for 
the times to which it relates, and must have been known to Macaulay, who neglected 
no source of information; but as far as we remember it is not quoted or reffered 
to by him. In anelaborate introduction Dr. Thomson tried to prove that the author 
was the same person as Alexander Cunningham the critic; and argued that it was 
unlikely that there should have been two Alexander Cunninghams almost contemporaries 
in birth and in death, both sons of Scotch ministers, both partly educated in Holland, 
both tutors to Whig Scotch noblemen, both good classical scholars and both famous 
Chess-players; for the historian was also known in this capacity, though it is not 
stated that people travelled from a distance to play with him.



Notwithstanding all these curious coincidences, which led many to believe in the 
identity of the two, it was proved by two independent investigators, one in the 
"Scots Magazine" for 1804 and the other "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1818, that the 
historian died, as already stated, in London in 1737, and that his will was proved 
at Doctors' Commons; while documentary proof of the critic at the Hague in 1730 was 
also forthcoming. These articles attracted so little attention that many persons 
continued to believe in Dr. Thomson's theory, and biographical dictionaries of 
high repute still asserted the identity of the two Cunninghams. It is one of many 
proofs of the thoroughness of Baron von der Lasa's investigations into the history 
of Chess, that in his article in the "Schachzeitung" 1862, pp. 161-165, he so 
clearly distinguishes the two men.



The Cunningham Gambit is first mentioned as the "Three Pawns' Gambit" by Capt. Bertin, 
whose little work was published in 1735. It has borne its present name since Stamma 
(1737, 1745) and Philidor (1749) who both refer to "its supposed inventor". Neither 
of these writers, however, approached, Chess from the literary side; and Philidor 
quotes "Cunningham and Bertin" as his authorities for the Gambit, as if Cunningham 
were likewise the author of a Chess treatise. There can be little question to which 
of the two Cunninghams this spirited opening is to be attributed. The Chess powers 
of the historian and diplomatist are only vaguely attested, while numerous onacdotes, 
in Twiss and elsewhere, prove the widely diffused fame of the scholar who resided at the Hague. With Von der Lasa in the "Schachzeitung" and the "Handbuch" (ed. 6, p. 403), we regard it as certain that the credit of the invention belongs to the critic, Alexander Cunningham "of Block".
									W. W.