Wilbur Cherrier Whitehead

Background

Wilbur Cherrier Whitehead was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a Cleveland newspaper man.

Education

His general education was obtained in the local schools, but he always considered that the training given by his father, in methods of finding information and then presenting his findings, was the most important in equipping him to teach others how to play bridge successfully.

Career

He went into business, was at one time president of the Simplex Automobile Company and was a director in other corporations, went to Europe to represent a number of American companies, and spent the most of a dozen years in Paris. By the time auction bridge had become a leading game he was one of its ablest players. In 1914 he brought out Whitehead's Conventions of Auction Bridge, while engaging in his first professional bridge activities as a side-line to other business interests. In 1921 he published his Auction Bridge Standards, which practically revolutionized the entire conception of the game among careful players. It gave a precise valuation of the cards and began the author's contribution to the standardization of the game. His name soon became a household word, wherever the game was played. A complete tabulation of conventions of play and desirable leads came from him shortly in his various succeeding writings, and he developed a complete bidding system, each declaration conveying to a partner a message very specific, within certain definite bounds. Later systems of others have simply carried farther forward the work he started. He was active also in promoting many activities connected with the game. For years he was chairman of the card committee of the Knickerbocker Whist Club in New York, was a founder of the Cavendish Club and its first president. He organized a "bridge cruise, " on the Republic, taking some 200 players around the West Indies for a series of tournaments on board. Every autumn in his later years he conducted a national convention of bridge teachers. He took part with Milton C. Work in the series of bridge games over the radio from 1925 to 1929 and, with Work, was one of the editors of the Auction Bridge and Mah Jong Magazine, later the Auction Bridge Magazine, during these years. He was the donor in 1930 of the Whitehead trophy for the women's national contract pair championship, still played for annually. At the time of his death, he was chairman of the Vanderbilt Cup committee. His last activity, when his health had begun to fail, was to gather together several other experts in an effort to form a universal system of contract bidding. As that movement was under way, he departed for France on his forty-ninth crossing of the Atlantic to rest and to visit his wife, Parthenia Whitehead, who had continued to make her home in Paris for years. Violating his physician's orders not to work on the way over, he died suddenly on the evening of June 27, 1931, while engaged in a study of bridge problems.

Achievements

• He was famous for his reiterated statement that "the law of averages is God's Law, and you can't go very far wrong on that. " He first popularized the term of "quick tricks" and made clear the reasons why a player should have a certain minimum number of them in a hand before deciding to open the bidding.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Auction Bridge Standards: With A Complete Explanation Of The Art Of Bidding (1921)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Whitehead's Conventions Of Auction Bridge: The Latest Developments Of The Principles Of Bidding And Play (1914)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Whitehead's winning bridge;: Standards of auction bidding and play,

Personality

One of the easiest men to know well, he was affectionately called "Whitey" by a legion of friends. Affable, with a ringing laugh, rare sense of humor, and a trustful strain that caused him frequently to sign important contracts without even reading them, he was an intensely human type. He liked to think of himself principally as an investigator, who tried to find out things about the game for others, and as one who taught people how to make their own lives happier.

Interests

• Always having a knack for games, he became a splendid amateur billiardist and golfer while abroad, as well as an expert player of card games.

Connections

Spouse:

Parthenia Whitehead