John Chapman

John Chapman (20 January 1801 – 11 September 1854) was an English engineer and writer. At different times in his career, he was involved with lace-making machinery, journalism, Hansom cabs and the promotion of railways, cotton and irrigation in India.

Life He was born at Loughborough, Leicestershire, on 20 January 1801, the eldest of the three surviving sons of John Chapman, a clockmaker there. He received his education first at a school kept by Mr. Mowbray, and then under the Rev. T. Stevenson; he taught himself Greek, and paid a French workman of his father's to teach him French. With other young people he was an involved in the establishment of the Loughborough Permanent Library; and by 1817 he was devoting his Sundays to teaching in the Sunday school, and had become secretary of a peace society, and of the Hampden Club, of which his father was president. At this time he was helping his father in his business.

About 1822, when Chapman was admitted to the General Baptist church, he was concentrating on the machinery required for the bobbinet trade. He joined his brother William in setting up a factory for the production of this machinery; and in a few years was able to build large premises, with a steam-engine. A supporter of the philosophical radicals, when a riot broke out in Loughborough at the time of the Great Reform Bill, he diverted an attack on the rectory, though the rector was an opponent. He landed at Bombay in September 1845 to make preliminary investigations. He returned home in 1846 with his plans and his report completed. Chapman issued a pamphlet in October 1847 on the cotton and salt question, entitled Remarks on Mr. Aylwin's Letter, and presented to parliament on behalf of Indian merchants in the Bombay presidency a petition for reform of civil government in India. He pursued inquiries about Indian cotton from 1848 to 1850 in Manchester and other places in preparation for The Cotton and Commerce of India, which he issued on 1 January 1851. He followed it by two papers in the Westminster Review, "The Government of India" (April 1852), and "Our Colonial Empire" (October of the same year). his paper, "India and its Finance", appeared in the Westminster Review for July that year; his "Constitutional Reform", in the same pages, in January 1854; and his "Civil Service" in the number for July.

A major scheme for the irrigation of India was also being prepared by Chapman, and he was in communication concerning it with the Board of Control. When he died he left an unfinished paper, a review of Humboldt's Sphere and Duties of Government; and almost immediately after his death the government sanction for his irrigation scheme was delivered in full form. His unfinished paper appeared in its incomplete state in the Westminster Review of the next month, October; and the Review reprinted his "Government of India" paper in a subsequent number.

Family In December 1824, Chapman married Mary, daughter of John Wallis, a Loughborough lace manufacturer. His wife and three out of ten children survived him.