Edward Chapman

Who was Edward Chapman?

Edward Chapman was a British academic and Conservative politician.

He was the son of John Chapman and his wife Ann née Sidebottom, of Hill End House, Hollingworth, near Mottram, Cheshire. John Chapman was member of parliament for Great Grimsby and was a major landowner, having made a fortune from the development of railways and docks.

Edward Chapman was educated at Merton College, Oxford, having been graduated with a first-class honours degree in Natural Science in 1864. He obtained a master's degree in 1866, and subsequently became a tutor at Magdalen College in 1868. He was appointed a public examiner in the Honours School of Science. He was elected a fellow of Magdalen College in 1882. He was curator of the University Botanic Gardens, and a member of the Linnean and Ashmolean Societies. He married Elizabeth Beardoe Grundy in 1863.

In 1877 his father died and he inherited shares in the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, and went on to become a director and deputy chairman of its successor Great Central Railway. He was also a director of the South Eastern and London Chatham and Dover Railway companies. He was lord of the manor of Hattersley, an estate purchased by his father.