People Australia

Ernest Arthur (known as Arthur or ‘Chappie’) Chapman (1892-1935) railway engineer and trade union leader 

Birth: 1892 in Lincoln, England, son of Henry Curtis Chapman, printer and compositor, and Sarah or Susannah, née Kennington. Marriage: 1914 at Lincoln, England, to Annette Rose Cooper. They had no children. Death: 20 February 1935 at Wahroonga Sanitorium, Sydney, New South Wales. Religion: none. 

• Educated at Lincoln Grammar and Lincoln Municipal Technical College. Apprentice and railway engineer in England. Active in AEU and associate editor of Independent Labor Party journal, Lincolnshire Democrat. Prominent in ILP circles, attending syndicalist conferences in Berlin and Paris.
• During World War I he was editor of suppressed journal Metal Workers Record. Secretary, shop steward movement and editor of Solidarity.
• Visited Soviet Union in 1921 and was highly impressed with central planning of Soviet economy.
• Migrated to Melbourne in 1923 and to Sydney in 1924. Secretary, NSW Branch, Australian Railways Union (ARU) from 1924 to 1930. General president of the ARU from 1930 to 1935. Largely responsible for the initiative of building Transport House in 1931. Founded union journal Railroad.
• With the backing (ambivalent) from J. T. Lang, he greatly strengthened power of ARU.
• Favorite ogre of New Guard and right wing ideologues for his ‘communist’ beliefs and reputation as ‘imported Bolshevic’ (sic), but was not member of the Communist Party of Australia. General president of the Australian Council Against War.
• Visited United States of America and England “on a health tour” during extended leave of absence from December 1933. Returned to Sydney in December 1934 when he was welcomed by the ARU band.
• Had a notably large funeral, with the Red Flag flying at half-mast and service read by his union colleague Edwin Albert Barker. Lloyd Ross was elected secretary of the NSW branch of the ARU in his place.
• Cause of death: essential hypertension and terminal uraemia.

Sources
Mark Hearn, Working lives, a history of the Australian Railways Union (Sydney, 1990); Greg Patmore, A history of industrial relations in the NSW Government Railways (PhD thesis University of Sydney, 1985); H. J. Gibbney & A. G Smith, A Biographical Register 1788-1939, vol 1 (Canberra, 1987); Normington-Rawling MSS, Noel Butlin Archives of Business and Labour, ANU, N57/1; Ellis, 1932; obituary, Workers’ Weekly, 1 March 1935, p 1 [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/209427513]; Labor Daily (Sydney), 3 September 1924, 13 January 1927; Railways Union Gazette, 9 September 1924, 11 March 1935; Locomotive Journal, 28 February 1935; The Railroad, 10 March 1935; Advocate, 15 March 1935; Journalist, 31 March 1935; ARU General Secretary’s Biannual Report, May 1950.