Harriet learned chess from her husband.
She was known as the country's strongest woman chess player. The
Worrall’s lead a life of wealth and privilege but when her husband died in New
York on September 6, 1878, Harriet at age 42 was left with little money. Most
of her husband's money had been lost shortly before his death. Finding herself
in modest circumstances she eventually ended up living in the house of a
friend, one Arthur Cole and his family.
As the years passed after her husband's death financial struggles wore her down
and by the mid-1886 she was suffering from epileptic attacks, which were
followed by what people who knew her described as "periods of mental
depression and melancholia."
About six and a half years before sailing to England to compete in the women's
international tournament, she attempted suicide. Just before Christmas 1890, while living in
the house of Arthur Cole, on Sunday morning December 21, the Cole family was
ready to have their breakfast but Harriet didn't come down. They were not alarmed because that was not
unusual. But at about 11:00 a.m. groans
were heard from her private room. Alarmed, Alfred Cole Jr. tried to open the
door, only to find it locked. The boy then went outside and climbed through
Worrall's window, and opened the door for his father. Harriet was writhing in agony on the floor
with a bottle of carbolic acid, a disinfectant, was found open on the table.
Mr. Cole sent for a doctor who administered emetics and three days later
Harriet was still struggling between life and death and the doctor estimated
the poison must have been in her stomach for at least twenty minutes; all he
could offer was a "possibility" of her recovery. Had she not been
found for another half hour, she would have died. This attempt likely was not a complete
surprise as the Coles had frequently
heard her speak of suicide during moments of depression.
The news regarding her attempted suicide traveled quickly to the chess
community and two days before New Year's Eve, the following appeared in the Brooklyn
Daily Eagle's chess column: "Mrs. Worrall, a noted woman chess player,
who last week attempted suicide during a fit of mental despondency, is in a
fair way to recover. Mrs. Worrall was a great admirer and friend of Captain
Mackenzie." Captain Mackenzie had died in 1891 and the cause of his death was a matter of speculation. The New York Times reported on April
27, 1890 that Mackenzie was suffering from tuberculosis, and on April 15, 1891,
a day after his death, mentioned that the immediate cause of death was
pneumonia, noting that his condition had worsened from a fever caught while
visiting Havana. However, on April 29, 1891, The Sun carried a report by
Dr. S. B. Minden, who had visited Mackenzie before his death, claiming that he
had committed suicide by an overdose of morphine, which he had requested
earlier to ease the pain from his tuberculosis, but Dr. Minden had refused. The
coroner who had presided over Mackenzie's death dismissed this assertion as ridiculous,
insisting that tuberculosis was the cause of death.
Between January 1891 and
mid-1894 Brooklyn's leading chess columns published nothing on her. Harriet recovered slowly and mid-1894 she was
back to chess and was sending solutions to problems given in newspaper columns.
In early November of 1894 she visited the masters' tournament that started in
New York where Steinitz was among the participants.
She then began a match for the U.S. women’s championship with Nellie Showalter,
the wife of Jackson W. Showalter and a very accomplished player in her own
right. The match was for seven games, with twelve moves an hour. When Nellie
Showalter was leading 3-1 with one draw, the match was interrupted on account
of Nellie Showalter's illness and never resumed. Several accounts point out
that because Worrall was a friend of Nellie Showalter she never claimed
victory.
On May 16, 1897 sixty-year old Harriet Worrall boarded a steamer and sailed for England as America's
representative at the First Ladies' International Chess Tournament to be held
in London that June and July. The Brooklyn
Daily Eagle reported that she was optimistic, saying anything less than a
first or second prize would be a disappointment.
The tournament (with Pillsbury acting as arbiter) resulted in Worrall finishing
fourth with 13 points out of nineteen games behind Mary Rudge (18½), L. M.
Fagan (15½) and Thorold (14). In early September 1897 she returned home
disappointed in her performance believing she could have done better had she
been more accustomed to playing with a time limit, keeping score and
clocks. She lost a great deal of time in
her games simply because she often forgot to stop the clock. Also, eight hours'
chess every day, with only a two hour break between games, was very hard on all
the players.
The players were a mixed group and it was confusing to her. Hertzsch, the youngest, was 18 years old and
could not speak a word of English. Lady Thomas was afflicted with a
"nervous ailment" which caused her hands to shake constantly when she
made her moves; her hair was white and she is nearly 70 years of age.
Muller Hartung of Germany, talked constantly while she was playing against
Worrall and in garner conversation was unrestrained while the games were in progress. Also, during the tournament, the heat was
oppressive so that fans were kept running constantly.
With few opportunities for serious matches or tournament play she made a habit
of taking a board against any visiting master visited the Brooklyn Chess Club.
There she had the opportunity to play many of them. In 1894 she lost a game to Albert B. Hodges
in a simultaneous exhibition and in she was one of 17 players who played
Jackson W. Showalter in another simultaneous exhibition at the local club; she
lost a King's Gambit.
In 1895 she took part in a seven-board simultaneous given by Harry N. Pillsbury
and lost. She met Pillsbury again when he gave a 14 board simultaneous to
players in consultation at the Brooklyn Chess Club. During that exhibition Harriet was in
consultation with Walter Frère and they held Pillsbury to a draw.
She also became involved with the British Ladies' Chess Club, curiously enough
founded in New York, in 1894 and in 1895 Worrall was behind a "Junior
Chess Club," an organization of young people affiliated with the Ladies'
Chess Club.
In 1896, when Jackson W. Showalter gave a fourteen-board exhibition at the
Brooklyn Chess Club, Worrall occupied one of the three tables reserved for
consultation games and she, again paired with Frère, defeated Showalter. Later the same year, they lost a
fourteen-board simultaneous display by John F. Barry. Shortly after that she played a board, this
time on her own, against Hermann Helms and scored a victory. The Eagle
reported that she was the strongest woman player in the city.
In 1898 she played in a four-board blindfold simultaneous exhibition given by
Albert B. Hodges at the Brooklyn Chess and the same year in consultation with
Walter Frère, she took a board in Pillsbury's 27-board simultaneous and was
defeated. Two weeks later, on December 17, 1898, when Dawid Janowsky visited
the club Worrall and Frère managed a win.
In 1899, Worrall helped to organize another ladies' chess congress, this time
in the United States but nothing came of it
That same year she and defeated Steinitz in a simultaneous. After that, chess news related to Harriet
Worrall becomes scarce.
She eventually reemerged and on Saturday, March 26, 1910, according to the Eagle
of March 27, Worrall was one of the five women among the twenty-eight
players, members of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science, who faced the
young Capablanca in simultaneous exhibition; she lost a Sicilian Defense.
Harriet Worrall died of natural causes in New York at ninety-two, on November
23, 1928.
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