The College Record 2022

Obituaries
Dominic’s faith made him quite stoical. When he was diagnosed with a progressive
respiratory fibrosis for which there was no cure, he did not let this dent his sense of
humour nor love of life. He kept on working until his sudden final illness, and even
during this spoke on the telephone to many of his friends in the last couple of days
of his life. Knowing him was just great.
Richard Gregson
ERNEST CHAPMAN
My father Ernest Chapman died peacefully at home in the
early hours of 15 January 2022, a couple of weeks after his
86th birthday. He spent his last month surrounded by close
family and friends, enjoying lots of poetry, music, and slow
strolls at his house on the Yorkshire moors.
Ernest was born in the winter of 1935 to Astrid and Edward
Chapman in south west London. Evacuated as a child during the war, he eventually
went on to perform two years of National Service, before enrolling at Queen’s College
to study Law. After graduation he joined his father’s law firm, Russell Cooke Potter
and Chapman, and ran the Old Square office. Ernest started on the traditional path
of a solicitor in the firm, which had historically handled the affairs of many important
clients such as Princess Beatrice, daughter of Queen Victoria, and Asquith’s Liberal
Party. He worked hard to lay the foundations of the firm’s successful commercial
property and was a director of the firm’s largest real estate client for many years.
During the 1960’s, Ernest acquired an eclectic collection of young ‘Swinging Sixties’
clients, quite by accident. (This all began with the speeding charge of a rather prolific
guitar player, whom he then went on to manage for almost 50 years.) Ranging from
photographers, models, hairdressers, musicians, novelists, magazine publishers,
and literary agents, Ernest was in demand. The work covered every area of law from
commercial and employment contracts to motoring offences. He was lucky enough
to travel the world for many decades, making friends everywhere that he went.
Ernest was married to his first wife, Jane, for 17 years, with whom he shared two
children, Josephine and Tom. He is survived by his second wife of 40 years Christie,
and their two children, Fenn and Jennie. In 1985, the pair took a leap from London
to Yorkshire, where they had purchased a farmhouse on the top of the moors. It was
Ernest’s dream to be amongst the wildlife and fresh air into his retirement years,
although it was only the end stages of his Alzheimer’s disease that actually forced
retirement upon him! He planted hundreds of trees over the years, enjoying the fruits
of nature which that had brought him and the family.
110 The Queen’s College | College Record 2022