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Georges Emile Barbier
24 February 1844, Besançon , France - 17 December 1895, France
Photo: The Glasgow Athenaeum: A Sketch of Fifty Years' Work (1847-1897)
By James Lauder, FRSL, Secretary of the Institution.
Saint Mungo Press, Glasgow, 1897.West of Scotland Challenge Cup holder 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892.
Glasgow Chess Club champion (Outram Cup) 1892 and 1893. Served as president of Glasgow Chess Club.
Chess problem composer.
Mr Barbier, who edited a chess column in the Glasgow Weekly Citizen, has an important connection to the famous Saavedra study.
Early in life he came to London with his father, the pastor at a French Protestant church there. By 1866 he was the French Master at Inverness Royal Academy, but added to his income by offering private French lessons.
During his time in that town he was involved in the forming of the Inverness Chess Club in 1871, being shown as one of the Vice-Presidents. (A club had had been founded in Inverness in 1840, but it must have lapsed.) The census for that year has him living on Bank Street, Inverness.
Barbier was still in Inverness at the time of the club's annual meeting in November 1876, but thereafter his name appears in chess reports from Yorkshire and London. His obituary in the British Chess Magazine of January 1896 (p24) says that he was French tutor at Ripon Grammar School before moving to London. In the 1881 census he was living at 6 Carlton Road, St Pancras, London.
In 1884 Barbier became the teacher of French at the Glasgow Athenaeum. He was selected from a list of 56 candidates.
In addition to his responsibilities there, he was for some time a teacher of French and German at Paisley Grammar School, from October 1886 to June 1888. There were 96 applicants. He left the position because he felt he could not do justice to the work required at two institutions.
As shown above, Barbier soon made left his mark on Glasgow and Scottish chess, winning the Scottish Championship in 1886. And for winning the West of Scotland Challenge Cup tournament three years in succession the trophy became his personal property. He was also several times champion of Glasgow Chess Club; 1886, 1892 and 1893.
In 1891 Barbier was living at 51 Wellbeck Crescent, Troon. His last major chess tournament in Scotland was the 1894 Scottish Championship.
Barbier was a journalist and, according to a history of the Glasgow Athenaeum, a littérateur, 'with a close acquaintance with the literature of his own and of his adopted country'. He was for some time the editor of La Semaine Française and was the joint-author of a French text-book for advanced students. He also contributed articles to the Revue des Deux Mondes and other French and English publications. Barbier was also an examiner to the Intermediate Education Board of Ireland.
Barbier was still employed at the Glasgow Athenaeum when he became ill around October 1895. Acting on medical advice, he travelled to his home in France in the hope of improving his health, but he died soon after in the hamlet of Ecrosville, Montaure, Normandy.
Sources
Inverness Courier, 27 September 1866, p8.
Inverness Advertiser, 7 October 1871, p2; 18 November 1876, p2.
Glasgow Herald, 19 June 1884, p4; 27 September 1884, p6.
Paisley & Renfrewshire Gazette, 2 October 1886, p4; 16 October 1886, p3; 30 June 1888, p5.
Glasgow Weekly Citizen, 28 December 1895, p10.
Heritage des Echecs Francais, Dominique Thimognier :-http://heritageechecsfra.free.fr/barbier.htmAlan McGowan
Historian, Chess Scotlandupdated 10/5/2024