CHAPMAN, SIR FREDERICK REVANS (1849-1936) was born in Wellington on 3 Mar 1849, the fifth son of H. S. Chapman (q.v.), and Catherine, daughter of T. G. Brewer, barrister, London. He was educated at the Church of England Grammar School, Melbourne, and in France, Germany and Italy. For some time he was with a special pleader in London, and then with Charles Russell (afterwards Lord Killowen). He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1871, practised at the common law bar in London and on circuit, and was later with Russell Roberts, a chancery barrister. Chapman returned to New Zealand and practised in Dunedin (Smith, Chapman and Sinclair) from 1872 to 1903. Chapman was a member of the Dunedin City Council in 1875 and the following year was law lecturer at Otago University. For some years he was on the New Zealand council of law reporting, and he was a member of many societies connected with scientific pursuits. Like his brother judge of later years (Sir Theophilus Cooper), he was for some time a deputy inspector of lunatic asylums. He was also chairman of the board of Industrial Conciliation. From 1903-07 he was President of the Court of Industrial Arbitration, and laid the foundation of the work since done by that court. Thereafter he sat on the regular Supreme Court bench. He retired in 1921, but his judicial work was not finished, for on more than one occasion of emergency he returned to the bench. He was president of the war pensions appeal board (1923-24), and for some years acted as compiler of statutes. A large number of the consolidation acts now on the statute books are the fruit of his labour. He was knighted in 1923, and finally retired from the bench in 1924.

Apart from his celebrity as a jurist, Chapman was an authority in many branches of learning. He had a high literary bent, and his studies took him into the fields of ethnology, botany and other branches of natural history, the love of which was inherited from his father. He was for many years a member of the Otago Institute and was president in 1877; a member of the Wellington Philosophical Society; of the Polynesian Society; and of the Geographic Board (from its inception in 1924). It was to the Otago Institute that he contributed his classic paper Maori Methods of Working Greenstone, which is still an authoritative work on the subject, and also Moa Remains in the Mackenzie Country. In the field of botany he discovered the red manuka, which now bears his Latinised name. He was a writer also on mountaineering and historical matters.

Chapman married in 1879, Clara, daughter of George Cook, barrister, of Dunedin. He died on 24 Jun 1936. His brother, MARTIN CHAPMAN, K.C., was with Cracknell, an equity draughtsman and conveyancer, and never went into common law chambers. He was a member of the firm of Chapman, Skerrett, Wylie and Tripp (Wellington).

Who's Who N.Z., 1924, 1932; N.Z. Law Jl, Jul 1936. (p); Tet.

Reference: Volume 1, page 91

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