English "Northern Upright" Chess Set, ca. 1850

English "Northern Upright" Chess Set, ca. 1850

English chess set in the "Northern Upright" pattern. The design was first mentioned in connection with the Edinburgh Chess Club (hence the name "Edinburgh Upright" or "Northern Upright"), but must have spread rather early to London. According to the issue of 22 March 1835 of Bell's Life in London, the first London workshops to offer this type of chessmen were apparently the workshop of Dorothy Calvert in 189 Fleet Street and the workshop of Thomas Sherwin in 67 Great Queen Street (an address under which Sherwin first appears in 1826). Peter Armit published a very nice article on "Uprights" in The Chess Collector Magazine, Vol. XXIX No. 3 (November 2020), showing many wonderful examples of this design, which clearly ranks among my personal favorites.

The pieces are turned and carved from boxwood and ebony. King size is 11cm. The pieces have a straight but upwardly tapering shaft and are very similar in style to the set shown in Peter Armit's article in image 8, a set which Peter attributes to F.H. Ayres.
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