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My take on the final step is use the moves to spell out the theme putting an apostrophe S in the blank cell (as indicated by the final sentence of the preamble). After all, we don’t put the symbols for the pieces in the central area - we put the actual letters of the thematic name. Hence I’m not putting a Q in f7, I’m leaving the R. The moves simply tell us where to put the relevant letters. Glad I don’t submit! Another confusing endgame.

But surely if you leave the original letter in f7 you haven’t fully followed the sequence of moves? Another letter needs to occupy that space, so what becomes of the R? I’m not satisfied that the answer without the possessive actually answers the question WMII correctly. And I’ve no idea whether the title would shed any light on this as I can’t make any sense of it at all. The only hint supplied (Rugby) led me to a father whose son wrote a poem the title of which is comprised by the solution (sans possessive) and someone who may be said to wander around.

Candlestick, the previous hint referred to the setting of a famous novel, which is where the title comes in

Thanks, I now have the title of the novel, although I don’t immediately see how it helps, or why the title was chosen over and above anything else from the novel. Given that the father from my previous researches actually appears as a character in the novel, I’m still none the wiser as to whether there is a link to the son’s poem. Is it necessary to know of a particular incident in the novel to glean a hint?

I didn't understand it until quisling's post (for which, thank you). I think it's as simple as the Title effectively being a famous example of the subject of the puzzle.

Ah, I see now, thanks. Unfortunately that only confirms the solution (which I never doubted) but doesn’t help with how it should be displayed.

The preamble refers to ‘notation’ in the 16 blank cells, so I think that's quite straightforward?

The notation referred to in the preamble just refers to the letters and numbers under and to the right of the grid NOT within the 32 blank area. Without putting in letters for the moves the thematic name essential to this puzzle would not be revealed. So I’m sticking to my theory of letters spelling out the term. As I said earlier we are not putting P for pawn so why put Q for queen?

Meant to say the instruction asks whose M*** is it, so putting in letters answers the question surely.

Help please with 26a, it seems a normal clue to me. I'm only missing one 'pair' type clue but can't see how this it.