Edith Holloway

Edith Martha Holloway (1868–1956) was a volunteer nurse in Serbia during Wolrd War I and a British chess player. She was the daughter of sculptor John Denton Crittenden (1834–1877), who exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Winner of the first post-World War I British Women's Championship in 1919, she was in the prize list in several subsequent contests, taking the title for a second time in 1936 at the age of sixty-eight.[1]

She played for England in the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad at Paris 1924, her individual statistics being +2 −9 =2 (13 games in total, including the preliminaries). Holloway was the first woman to play in an Olympiad, and the event was notable for her defeat of Peter Potemkine, a Russian Master who had settled in France.[2]

She shared first place with Helene Cotton at Meran 1924 (unofficial European women's championship). After the tournament three of the participants (Holloway, Cotton and Agnes Stevenson) defeated three others (Paula Wolf-Kalmar, Gülich and Pohlner) in a double-round London vs. Vienna match.[3]

Holloway also shared 4-5th place in the inaugural Women's World Chess Championship (WWCC), held in London in 1927. She tied for 6–7th at Warsaw 1935 (5th WWCC), and 10-16th at Stockholm 1937 (6th WWCC). All of these events were won by Vera Menchik.[4]