Can't work out this name

[Gallicrow]

It's from the flyleaf of a book, dated around 1890.

[AlanBoyd]

? J. S. W Tear

although the absence of a dot after the proposed ‘W’ is slightly disconcerting.

Added: some version of McTear?

More: there is a record of a J.S.McTear in Northern Ireland first decade of 20th century.

[AlanBoyd]

J S McTear seems to have published a book on Symbolic Logic, and judging by some letters to newspapers was interested in card games. I cannot find a chess connection.

Correction: I think he was a bookseller and was advertising this book. The interest in card games still stands.

[Gallicrow]

Brilliant! Thanks very much.

[Eyesee]

I have noticed that sometimes Irish names starting with Mc, such as McTear don't always have the c, but are written M'Tear.

Could that be a ' in front of the T.

Ian C

[Gallicrow]

I wonder if it could be John Smith McTear, who is listed as a board game designer on this page:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/65239/john-smith-mctear

He's described as a "Solicitor and Author" in the 1911 Irish census.

Here's the link to the book with his signature:
https://www.thomsonroddick.com/catalogue/lot/ae49ba335f19e8b83d066c6bf704b481/234ee8408ea626887a25312564534f0c/carlisle-thursday-4th-december-2025-at-1130am275-lot-167/

[Kiltaglassan]

He's described as a "Solicitor and Author" in the 1911 Irish census.

https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Antrim/St__Anne_s_Ward/Arthur_Street/133336/

...and in 1901 census.
House 43 in Clifton Road (Bangor, Down).
https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Down/Bangor/Clifton_Road/1252737/
https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000763064/

[AlanBoyd]

Addresses from his adverts in The Bookseller:

1894 1 Croom Villas, Bangor, Co. Down
[Added: various newspaper items for Croom Villa, Clifton Road, Bangor]
1897 [same address]
1902 [same address]

letter to Pall Mall Gazette, 1905
Belfast

letter to Pall Mall Gazette, 1907
6 Arthur Chambers, Belfast

During the same period as the last item above the same address is associated with adverts for properties to let via "G. K, Smith & McTear"

1907 is the last year that he appears with the Arthur Chambers address (or at all that I can see), by 1912 it is associated with Walter Smyth, solicitor

[Eyesee]

Died in Bangor, Co. Down in 1913

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/files/civil/deaths_returns/deaths_1913/05330/4483798.pdf

Ian C