Wilfred Hugh Miller Kirk

Born: 18 May 1877 in Wellington, Somerset, England.

Died: 12 June 1946 in Hastings, East Sussex, England.

Wilfred Kirk was one of Crowley's chess-playing opponents at the Hastings Chess Club located at No. 7 Carlisle Parade, Hastings.  He was the assistant secretary and treasurer to the club and one of the few new friends Crowley had made since his move to Netherwood in his later years.  Crowley thought of him as one of his most worthy chess opponents at the club and occasionally invited him over to Netherwood for tea and conversation.

Wilfred Kirk was born in Wellington, Somerset (or nearby Calmstock, Devon) as the 2nd of three children of school inspector and journalist Alfred Kirk (1853-1xxx) and Helen Sandwell (1846-1931), who married in 1872. After a stay in Staffordshire, the family moved to London before 1891. Wilfred went to school, and was employed in the London Civil Service in 1894. He worked there till World War II (in 1901 and 1911 as a clerk). He married in 1899 to Mabel Gannaway (1878-1961) from Wolverhampton. They divorced in 1932, and he married again in 1934. He died in 1946 at the Buchanan Hospital in Hastings.

He played on the top boards for the Ministry of Health for many years, and ran the Civil Service Chess League between the two wars. Tournaments: 5th in Ostende Amateur B 1906 (11/17), 8th in Tunbridge Wells 1906 (2/8), 1st in the Surrey County Challenge Cup 1912, 8th in Cheltenham 1913, 1st in Hastings C 1919, 6th in the City of London championship 1919 (+5 -4 =2), 1st in the Middlesex championship 1920 (4½/5), 1st in Surrey County Challenge Cup 1926. The peak of the career was 11th place in the British Championship in Ramsgate 1929 (+1 -8 =2). He was 4th in Hastings (1939/40) (+1 -2 =4), an event he also helped to organize.