Hugh Chapman

The Rev Hugh Boswell Chapman (5 November 1853 – 1 April 1933) was a British Liberal politician and Anglican priest. He was a Progressive member of the London County Council from 1889 to 1892.

Chapman was born in London in 1853,^[1] the son of Henry Chapman and his wife Priscilla (née Wakefield). Gen Sir Edward Chapman (1840-1926) and Sir Arthur Wakefield Chapman (1849-1926) were older brothers. He was the grandson of the philanthropist and statistician Edward Wakefield and great-grandson of the Quaker philanthropist Priscilla Wakefield.

He was educated at Tonbridge School^[2] and Keble College, Oxford (BA, 1875).^[3]

He was ordained deacon in 1878 and priest in 1881.^[3] He served his title under the Rev the Hon Adelbert Anson (subsequently a bishop in Canada) at St Mary Magdalene, Woolwich (1878-1880) and then at St Paul's, Newington (also known as St Paul's, Lorrimore Square) (1881-1885),^[3] arriving at the latter shortly after the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Thorold, had imposed an Evangelical Vicar on the extreme Anglo-Catholic parish, prompting the mass exodus of the congregation to the nearby St Agnes, Kennington Park.^[4][5] During his time at Lorrimore Square he was Chaplain to the Forces in Egypt during the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882.^[3] He was Vicar of St Luke's, Camberwell (1885-1909) and then Chaplain at the Savoy Chapel (1909-1933).^[3]

Chapman was a proponent of the Normyl treatment for alcoholism.^[6] He was an active supporter of Father Damien's leper hospital in Hawaii.^[7] He established a "Hugh Boswell" Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at St Luke's; the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Edward Talbot was initiated as a member in 1901.^[8] St Luke's had a notable reputation under Chapman: Princess Mary, the Duchess of Teck (the mother of Queen Mary) was a regular visitor, and he was responsible for decorations being installed by John Ruskin's Century Guild of Artists, Herbert Horne, Frederic Shields, Selwyn Image, and Edward Burne-Jones.^[9] (The church was bombed in 1941, and rebuilt.)^[9]

The Savoy Chapel was widely known during Chapman's incumbency as a location where divorced persons were permitted to marry or to have their civil marriages blessed.^[10] Notable weddings included that of Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough and Lt Col Jacques Balsan in 1921^[11] and Edith Stuyvesant Vanderbilt and Senator Peter Goelet Gerry in 1925.^[12] A condition of such 'benedictory' services was that there be no publicity.^[13] Nevertheless, in 1926 Chapman refused to marry Lord Sholto Douglas and Mrs Mendelssohn Pickles, on the basis they were the guilty parties in their respective divorces.^[14] Chapman's successor as Chaplain, the Rev Cyril Cresswell, immediately brought an end to the marriage of divorced persons in the Chapel.^[15]

Chapman was elected to the newly-formed London County Council for Camberwell North (in which St Luke's was situated) in 1889 as a Progressive.^[2] He did not seek re-election in 1892. His brother, Cecil Maurice Chapman, was a Moderate Party member for Chelsea from 1895 to 1898.^[2]

Chapman was the author of a number of books.

• The Seven Last Words of Love (1885: Griffith Farran & Co)
• Sermons in Symbols (1888: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co)
• Where is Christ? (1890: Swan Sonnenschein & Co)
• Steps to the Higher Life (1897: Swan Sonnenschein & Co)
• Proverbs in Practice (1909: F. H. Morland)
• At the Back of Things (1911: Duckworth & Co)
• The soul of women’s suffrage (1912: Corrigan & Wilson)
• Home Truths about the War (1917: G. Allen & Unwin)

Chapman was unmarried.^[10] During his incumbency at the Savoy Chapel, he lived at the National Club, at 12 Queen Anne’s Gate.^[16][10] He died in a nursing home in 1933, aged 79.^[17]