Frank Chapple

Frank Chapple, Baron Chapple (8 August 1921 – 19 October 2004) was general secretary of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU), a leading British trade union.

Life Frank Chapple was born in the slum area of Hoxton, east London, in a flat above his father's shoe-repair shop. There was no bath or running hot water in the Chapple home, later, on Pitfield Street.

A Communist Party member early in his adult life, Chapple left the party after, and partly as a result of, the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. He became a forceful anti-communist, and with Les Cannon ran a successful campaign in the late 1950s to counter communist vote-rigging in his union. He joined the Labour Party in 1958. His successor was fellow anti-communist Eric Hammond. One of Chapple's sons, Barry Chapple, was a regional official of Amicus, which succeeded the EETPU. Amicus merged with the TGWU in 2007 to become Unite the Union.