CHAPMAN, William (c.1647-at least 1687), of St. James’s Street, Westminster.

Chapman’s origins are obscure, though he may have been akin to William Chapman, a hemp-dresser, who became a freeman of Dover in 1656 and captain of two bulwarks in the town defences. Presumably an attorney, he acquired an interest in the port by his second marriage, and procured the new charter at the cost of £141 19s.8d. He was returned to James II’s Parliament as a non-official Member in the following year and helped to support the canopy at the coronation. He was doubtless a Tory; but his only committee was on the bill for the new parish of St. James Piccadilly, where he was a vestryman. He was marked ‘gone away’ in the rate book for 1687,and nothing further is known of him or his family.Add. 29625, f. 84; J. B. Jones, Annals of Dover, 386; Suss. Arch. Colls. xv. 297; CSP Dom. 1684-5, p. 191; Westminster City Lib. St. James Piccadilly vestry bks. and rate bks.