Agnes Lawson-Stevenson was a British chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 master. She was four-time British Ladies' Champion

British Chess Championship

The British Chess Championship is organised by the English Chess Federation. There are separate championships for men and women. Since 1923 there have been sections for juniors, and since 1982 there has been an over-sixty championship. The championship venue usually changes every year and has been...

 (1920, 1925, 1926, 1930), and married to Rufus Stevenson, editor of the British Chess Magazine

British Chess Magazine

British Chess Magazine is the world's oldest chess magazine in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since. It is frequently known in the chess world as BCM....

.

She took 3rd at Meran 1924 (unofficial European women’s championship, Helene Cotton and Edith Holloway

Edith Holloway

Edith Martha Holloway was one of the brightest names in British women's chess. She was the daughter of sculptor John Denton Crittenden , who exhibited at the Royal Academy....

 won). After the tournament three of the participants (Holloway, Cotton and Stevenson) defeated three others (Paula Wolf-Kalmar

Paula Wolf-Kalmar

Paula Wolf-Kalmar was an Austrian chess master, born in Agram .She took 5th at Meran 1924 . After the tournament three of the participants defeated three others in a double-round London vs...

, Gülich and Pohlner) in a double-round London vs. Vienna match.

She was thrice the Women's World Championship

Women's World Chess Championship

The Women's World Chess Championship is played to determine the women's world champion in chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE....

 Challenger. She tied for 9-11th at London 1927

Women's World Chess Championship 1927

The 1st Women's World Chess Championship took place during the 1st Chess Olympiad 1927 in London. It was organized by FIDE and was played as a full round-robin tournament. Vera Menchik won the championship, the first of all her 7 championships. The final results were as follows:...

, took 5th at Hamburg 1930, and took 3rd at Prague 1931.
On the way to play in the 1935 Women's World Championship

6th Chess Olympiad

The 6th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between August 16 and August 31, 1935, in Warsaw, Poland...

, she left the aircraft in Poznań

Poznan

Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

 to complete a passport check. She returned to the aircraft from the front and ran into the propellor and was killed.

Her husband was re-married in 1937 to Women's World Chess Champion, Vera Menchik

Vera Menchik

Vera Menchik was a British-Czech chess player who gained renown as the world's first women's chess champion. She also competed in chess tournaments with some of the world's leading male chess masters, defeating many of them, including future World Champion Max Euwe.The daughter of a Czech father...

, who was herself killed just a few years later in 1944.

A set of clocks of wooden clocks exist labelled "AGNES STEVENSON MEMORIAL FUND THE PROPERTY OF THE KENT COUNTY CHESS ASSOCIATION". One was sold on eBay on 2 December 2009 for £435.

Further reading