Henry Samuel Chapman (21 July 1803 – 27 December 1881) was an Australian and New Zealand judge, colonial secretary, attorney-general, journalist and politician.

[2][3] In 1835, Chapman returned to England as a salaried intermediary between the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada and its friends in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

He supported the colonising ideas of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, and had a passion for colonial self-government, on which he published several treatises.

Governor Denison held that as a representative of the government in the legislative council Chapman should have supported its transportation policy and virtually dismissed him, though he gave him leave of absence on half pay until the question could be referred to the Secretary of State.

Chapman's special contribution was that he devised a method that was workable, and drafted the first bill to become law in any part of the world.

He resigned his seat in February 1862 to become an acting-judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, while Redmond Barry took a year's leave of absence.

Chapman retired in 1875 taking up commerce and sheep farming in Central Otago, he died of cancer in Dunedin, New Zealand.

[2][4] Chapman married twice; firstly on 6 June 1840, to Catherine DeLancy Brewer (born 1810), (daughter of T. G. Brewer, a London barrister), who was drowned while returning to Australia from visiting England along with two sons and a daughter when the passenger ship SS London foundered in the Bay of Biscay in January 1866.

Chapman revisited England, and on 11 April 1868 married Selina Frances Carr, sister-in-law of Richard Davies Ireland, who survived him, with at least three sons of the first marriage.