John Chapman (engineer)

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.

He was born at Loughborough, Leicestershire, on 20 January 1801, the eldest of the three surviving sons of John Chapman, a clockmaker there.

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 became secretary to the Safety Cabriolet and Two-wheel Carriage Company in 1830; in the same year his wife and children joined him in London.

He was treated at first as a visionary, but the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Company was set up, with offices at 3 New Broad Street, London.

[1] Chapman's activities had obtained for him the support of Richard Cobden, John Bright, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Sir Charles Napier, Herbert Spencer, and others.

[1] 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.

[1] In March 1853, Chapman issued Principles of Indian Reform ... concerning ... the Promotion of India Public Works, which went through a second edition at once; and wrote Baroda and Bombay, a protest against the removal of Colonel James Outram from his post as resident at the Guikwar's court at Baroda; a copy was sent to every Member of Parliament, and Outram was reinstated.

Two months later, in May, he wrote an introductory preface, at the request of the Bombay Association, to Civil Administration of the Bombay Presidency by Nowrozjee Furdoonjee (Naoroji Furdunji), a Parsi reformer;[4] 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.