For more information on the history of Cable Chess, see Bill Wall's web page . Tim Harding's book Correspondence Chess in Britain and Ireland, 1824-1987 , reviewed below , also has a chapter on telegraphic and cable chess.

In 1924 the opening of the direct Western Union cable between London and Chicago prompted the arrangement of a match between the London Chess League and a team from Chicago. The text and photographs from the Souvenir Book of this event, which was held on November 26th, 1926, are shown below.

There were also two series of Anglo-American University matches between teams from Oxford and Cambridge and Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. The first series took place between 1899 and 1903 and was ended by the Russo-Japanese war, which made arrangements for the cabling too difficult. A second series of University matches was held from 1906 to 1910.

In 1898 a match between the British Chess Club and the Brooklyn Chess Club was played over the cable of the Commercial Cable Company, and souvenir chess pieces in the form of a knight with a piece of cable mounted in the body were created by Siemens Brothers of London, the cable's manufacturer.

A cable chess match was played in 1897 between the House of Commons, London, and the House of Representatives, Washington, the signals being carried by the Anglo American Telegraph Company and the Western Union Telegraph Company. A souvenir chess piece in the form of a rook or castle, engraved with the details of the match, was issued by Telcon, the cable manufacturing and laying contractors for Anglo American.

According to the Souvenir Book of the 1926 cable chess match, shown below, cable chess matches between Great Britain & Ireland and the United States of America were held every year from 1896 until 1911, when Britain, having won three matches in succession, took permanent possession of the trophy.

Nowadays it is not necessary to bring the players face to face, and matches can be played between teams who may be hundreds of miles apart. Indeed, a cable match between the United Kingdom and the United States is now one of our annual fixtures. Sir George Newnes having given a valuable silver cup to be competed for year by year. The last of these matches was played on February 12 and 13, 1897, the English representatives being Messrs. Blackburne, Locock, Atkins, Lawrence, Mills, Bellingham, Blake, Jackson, Cole and Jacobs. The United States team included the young champion Pillsbury, Showalter, Delmar and seven others whose reputation is better known on the other side of the Atlantic. The play lasted for two days; everything proceeded without a hitch, and in the end the British team won by 5½ to 4½. This result was eminently satisfactory, for the team was almost entirely composed of amateurs, and the selection had been subjected to much sharp criticism. The process of conducting such a match is a very simple one. A wire connected with the cable is brought direct into the room where the players are seated. Each player declares his move as he makes it on his board, and this move is forthwith "flashed across the sea" and is made known to the opposing player, on whose board a corresponding move is made. This process goes on until all the games are finished and the match completed. Of course the moves are not sent at length, but a most ingenious code is used, by which in fact several moves can be communicated simultaneously. So rapid is the transmission of the moves that, on one occasion during the late match, not more than fifty-five seconds were necessary for cabling a move and its reply. A similar match was played on May 31 and June 1, 1897, between five members of the British House of Commons playing in London, and a similar number of members of the U.S.A. House of Assembly playing in Washington, the result being a draw of 2½ each. In this match a record of time in cable matches was established, twenty moves being cabled in twenty-one and a half minutes, one move going to and from Washington in forty seconds.

An article describing this cable chess match as well as another one that same year was also published in the British magazine The Leisure Hour in 1897:

Parliamentary Chess Match by Cable The Great Telegraphic Feat British House of Commons v. United States House of Represtvs. Played over the Extensive Cable and land line systems of the Anglo-American Telegraph Co. Ltd. of London and the Western Union Telegraph Coy. of New York

Chess Match by Cable Between House of Commons, London, and House of Representatives, Washington Played Over the Lines of the Anglo American Telegraph Co. London and Western Union Telegraph Co. New York 1897

As several examples of this piece are known, it seems likely that one was presented to each participant as a memento of the match.

The elder Guiliano moved to London in 1860 and set up his own workshop in 1861. In 1874 he established an elegant retail business, where he was patronised by Queen Victoria. By the time the chess piece shown here was made, Guiliano's sons, Carlo Joseph (b.1860) and Arthur Alphonse (b.1864) had taken control of the business, which continued to trade until 1914.

To commemorate the event, this souvenir rook (or castle) was made by the brothers Carlo and Alphonso Guilianio, sons of Carlo Guiliano (1832-1895), the celebrated Italian jeweller of the Victorian era.

The two-day match was carried over the cables of the Anglo American Telegraph Company and the Western Union Telegraph Company, and took place on May 31st and June 1st, 1897. The result was a draw, 2.5 to 2.5.

According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for 30 May 1897: "Three Democrats, a Republican and a Populist" were selected to "defend American chess prestige" in a match between the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, DC, and the British House of Commons in London. The match was arranged by John Henniker Heaton , a British Conservative MP, and U.S. Representative Richmond Pearson of North Carolina.

The cable chess match between England and Brooklyn was played on March 18th and 19th, 1898, using the cables of the Commercial Cable Company, and the result was a win for England. This souvenir knight, incorporating sections of undersea cable, was made to commemorate the event.

Cable chess was a topic of major interest just before the turn of the 19th century. In 1898, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle , whose on line archive is made available by the Brooklyn Public Library, had no fewer than 151 articles which mentioned cable chess.