His maternal grandparents, Captain Warren Richard Weston and Anne (
née Bates) Weston, were not wealthy, but were well connected and his mother spent several years of her youth living with family in England, where she received a robust education.[3]
Career
Chapman began his banking career with the banking house of
Baring Brothers & Co., where his relative,
Joshua Bates, the American international
financier who divided his life between the
United States and the
United Kingdom, was senior partner. He later traveled to South America, China and other countries before coming to New York and becoming a member of the banking firm Ward, Campbell & Co., which was closely aligned with Baring Brothers.[4]
He also was a member of the
New York Stock Exchange, for which he served as
president from 1873 to 1874, during the
Panic of 1873,[4] during which the Exchange closed for ten days starting on September 20, 1873.
In Spring 1882, after a severe illness, Ward, Campbell & Co. was dissolved, and Chapman was advised by his physicians to take a long sea voyage. He sailed from New York to Japan and then further east. The trip seemed to have "entirely restored his health" until he was stricken at Manila with a fever that caused his death.[4]
Beatrix Chapman (1864–1942), who married British diplomat Sir
George Head Barclay in 1891.[13] They divorced,[14] and in May 1920,[15] she married Maj. Gen. Raymond de Candolle,
C.B., C.E.,[16] son of
Casimir de Candolle, and was painted by John Singer Sargent,
c. 1881.[17] In 1921, she lived in
Smyrna,
Greece.[18]
He was a member of the
Union Club of the City of New York, and "was very much liked in social as well as business circles. He was an accomplished linguist, having excellent command of several languages."[4]
Through his son John, he was the grandfather of four, including
Victor Emmanuel Chapman (1890–1916), the first American aviator to die in France during
World War I;[19] John Jay Chapman Jr. (1893–1903), who died in youth;[6] Conrad Chapman (1896–1989), who was engaged to marry Dorothy Daphne McBurney (1912-1997) in 1934,[20] but who married Judith D. Kemp (1906-1999) in England in 1937; and Chanler Armstrong Chapman (1901–1982),[21] who married Olivia James, a niece of
Henry James. They divorced and he married the former Helen Riesenfeld, a writer, in 1948.[22] After her death in 1970, he married Dr. Ida R. Holzbert Wagman in 1972.[23]
Through his daughter, who was known as Lady Barclay, he was the grandfather of Dorothy Katherine Barclay, who became Lady Kennard after her marriage to
Sir Coleridge Kennard, 1st Baronet.[18]