John Chapman (1704–1784) was an English cleric and scholar, archdeacon of Sudbury from 1741.
[1] While tutor of his college, Charles Pratt, Jacob Bryant, and, for a short time, Horace Walpole were amongst his pupils.
In 1743 he was a candidate for the provostship of King's College, Cambridge, but William George, who had the backing of Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, was elected by 28 votes to 10.
[2] Chapman's first work was The Objection of a late anonymous writer (i.e., Anthony Collins) against the Book of Daniel considered, Camb.
William Warburton, in a letter to Philip Doddridge, criticised its slips, and said "it was written by order of the A.
In 1744 his letter On the ancient numeral characters of the Roman Legions, was added to Tunstall's Observations on Epistles of Cicero and Brutus, Lond., in confutation of Middleton's notion that there were legions of the same number in different parts of the empire.
In 1742 he published Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity, in five parts, Lond.
In 1747 he prefixed anonymously in Latin to Richard Mounteney's edition of Demosthenes his Observationes in Commentarios vulgò Ulpianeos, and a map of ancient Greece.
In 1760 Lord-keeper Henley made a decree in his favour, but the House of Lords reversed the decision.