An historic collection of valuable chess sets belonging to one of this country’s most flamboyant and controversial tycoons is set to go under the hammer.

Lord Kagan, a Lithuanian Jew and textile magnate, was like many East Europeans, a seriously keen chess player.

His collection began decades ago, thanks to his friends, who, when they ventured abroad, would invariably bring him back a present.

So there are Russian sets, Indian, Spanish and military ones, a fabulously ornate Alice In Wonderland affair, as well as a gloriously non-PC monkey one.

Best of all is a political chess set complete with a black 10 Downing Street door and some of the best-known political figures of the 20th century including Enoch Powell, ex-Prime Ministers ‘Sunny’ Jim Callaghan, Huddersfield-born Harold Wilson and Ted Heath as well as Barbara Castle.

The 20-or-so sets were kept in glass-fronted, illuminated cabinets at one of Kagan’s homes, Barkisland Hall, where they were admired by guests at corporate entertainment events.

Joseph Kagan and his wife Margaret escaped the Nazis after being incarcerated in a ghetto for many months and they eventually set up in business in West Yorkshire.

He befriended Harold Wilson and soon his famous Gannex raincoats were clothing world leaders and royalty.

But he suffered a fall from grace in 1981 when he was convicted of theft and was stripped of his knighthood.

After Kagan’s death in 1988 the sets mouldered in storage before his widow Lady Kagan, who lived in Bradley, decided in 2008 to donate them to Huddersfield Chess Club. At the time she said: “I thought Joseph would have wanted them to be appreciated.”

She died in 2011 but club members are anxious to recognise her kindness and have her name engraved on new chess boards and clocks.

Senior club member Chris Stratford said: “It’s a great shame that we don’t have somewhere that we could showcase them so people could enjoy seeing them but that’s reality.

“They really are the most wonderful figurines but are to be admired not played with for the most part though one or two of them can be. They are so ornate it would be difficult to play a match with them.”

Hartleys, Ilkley, is set to auction the sets, which could fetch hundreds of pounds, at a celebrity auction later this year.

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