Sir Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet

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Sir
Thomas Chapman
Arnold Walter Lawrence
Ruins of Killua Castle, former seat of the Chapman baronets

Sir Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman, 7th Baronet (6 November 1846 – 8 April 1919) was an Anglo-Irish landowner, the last of the Chapman baronets of Killua Castle in County Westmeath, Ireland. For many years he lived under the name of Thomas Robert Lawrence, taking the name of his partner, Sarah Lawrence, the mother of his five sons, one of whom was T. E. Lawrence, also known as 'Lawrence of Arabia'.[1]

Early life and background

Thomas Chapman was born in Southill, Westmeath, Ireland in 1846, the second of the three sons of William Chapman and his wife Louisa, daughter of Colonel Arthur Vansittart, of Shottesbrooke, and the grandson of Sir Thomas Chapman, 2nd Baronet.[2][3][4]

The family belonged to the

M.P. for Westmeath ... Sir Benjamin James, 4th baronet, sat as M.P. for Westmeath ... 1841–7 and was Lord-Lieutenant of that county. The 5th baronet, Sir Montagu Richard, was High Sheriff of County Westmeath.[5]

Thomas Chapman was brought up to lead the life of a country gentleman, at a house called South Hill, near the village of Delvin, County Westmeath, Ireland, a modest property of some 170 acres, and also at the family's town house in Dublin. He was educated in England, at Eton College.[2][3][4]

Life

As a younger son, it was expected that Chapman would run, rather than own, the family's estates, and from 1866 to 1868 he learnt about estate management at the

Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. However, his elder brother, William Eden Chapman (born 1844), an officer in the 15th Hussars, died in May 1870, leaving Chapman as the heir. The third brother, Francis Vansittart Chapman, was then trained to manage the estates.[3][6]

Sarah Lawrence

On 24 July 1873, Chapman married Edith Sarah Hamilton (born c. 1847), daughter of George Augustus Rochfort-Boyd,

DL, of Middleton Park, County Westmeath,[7] and they had four daughters, Eva Jane Louisa (born 1874), Rose Isabel (born 1878), Florence Livia (born 1880) and Mabel Cecele (born 1881).[2][3][8]

In the late 1870s, the Chapmans took on as a

Sunderland, County Durham, had been registered at birth under the surname of her unmarried mother, Elizabeth Junner, who at the time was working as a servant in the house of Thomas Lawrence, a Lloyd's surveyor, and his son John Lawrence is thought to be Sarah Lawrence's father.[3]

In 1885, Lawrence became pregnant. She went to live in rooms in

Carnarvonshire (now Gwynedd), North Wales, and their second illegitimate son, christened Thomas Edward and later famous as 'Lawrence of Arabia', was born there in August 1888.[3]

The Lawrence family lived at 2 Polstead Road, Oxford from 1896 to 1921
T. E. Lawrence

The couple stayed only a short time in Tremadog, and soon moved on, to

Stewartry of Kirkcudbright in Scotland, then to Dinard in Brittany, the Isle of Wight, and the New Forest, choosing places where their English neighbours were unlikely to recognise him. They had nine children altogether, but three of them died young, leaving five sons and a daughter who survived infancy. In 1896, still unmarried and going under the name of Mr and Mrs Lawrence, the couple arrived in Polstead Road, Oxford.[10] The purpose of this move was largely to enable them to educate their sons, despite their limited means.[3][11]

Chapman lived a life of leisure and spent much of his time with his sons. He was a photographer, hunted, spoke good French, was interested in medieval architecture, taught his sons carpentry, and even in old age would quote from Homer and Horace. He bought smart new bicycles and liked to cycle long distances.[12]

In 1914, Chapman succeeded his cousin Sir Benjamin Rupert Chapman, 6th Baronet (1865–1914), to the baronetcy.[2] He died on 8 April 1919 in Oxford and was buried at Wolvercote Cemetery.[13] As he left no legitimate male heirs, the Chapman Baronetcy of Killua Castle became extinct.[2]

Chapman's son T. E. Lawrence had already become world-famous, following the Arab Revolt of 1916. Another of his surviving sons, A. W. Lawrence (1900–1991) became notable as an archaeologist and art historian.[1]

Money affairs in exile

On 30 March 1888, Chapman assigned his life interest in his father's estates to his younger brother Francis Chapman, in exchange for a life annuity of £200 (equivalent to £24,000 in 2021). Their father, William Chapman, died in 1889, leaving the bulk of his property to his son Francis. However, Chapman also had (or later inherited) some capital, which by 1916 was more than £20,000, producing at the time an annual income of some £1,000, a substantial figure.[3]

Chapman (otherwise Mr Lawrence) was probably disappointed when his brother Francis died unmarried in 1915, leaving him only £25,000 of his estate of £120,296, with £10,000 going to the Adelaide Hospital in Dublin and £25,000 being shared by Chapman's legitimate offspring, his four daughters, who were also the residuary legatees. When Chapman (Lawrence) received the £25,000, he shared part of it out among his sons.[3]

Chapman had a sister, Caroline Margaret Chapman, who in 1894 married her cousin, Montagu Chapman, later the fifth

Liddell Hart's biography of him: "The father's family seemed unconscious of his sons, even when after his death recognition of their achievement might have done honour to the name."[3]

What was left of the family's land in Ireland was sold[by whom?] in 1949 and then came to some 1,230 acres (5.0 km2).[3]

Descendants

The Lawrence brothers in 1910: from left to right: Thomas Edward (Ned), Frank, Arnold, Bob and Will

Chapman had four daughters: Eva Jane Louisa (born 1874); Rose Isabel (born 1878); Florence Lina (born 1880) and Mabel Cecele (born 1881).

Chapman's eldest son, Montagu Robert Lawrence (1885–1971), became a physician and was a medical missionary in China.[14]

His second son, Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, died childless in a motorcycle accident in 1935, while his third and fourth sons, William George Lawrence (1889–1915) and Frank Helier Lawrence (1893–1915), also childless, were killed during the First World War.

Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry; he is buried at St Souplet British Cemetery.[15] Second Lieutenant Frank Helier Lawrence died on 9 May 1915 while serving with the 3rd Bn. attd. 1st Bn. Gloucestershire Regiment; he is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial.[16]

His fifth son, Arnold Walter Lawrence (1900–1991), married Barbara Thompson in 1925 and had one child, Jane Helen Thera Lawrence.[6] In 1947, she married James Macdonald Cassels,[17] who became Lyon Jones Professor of Physics in the University of Liverpool in 1960, and they had two children.[18][19][20]

Sarah Lawrence died in 1959, aged 98, in the

Acland Nursing Home
, Oxford.

Notes

  1. ^ a b Lawrence, Arnold Walter at arthistorians.info, accessed 17 August 2008
  2. ^ a b c d e 'CHAPMAN, Sir Thomas Robert Tighe', in Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edition by Oxford University Press, December 2007 (subscription required) CHAPMAN, Sir Thomas Robert Tighe, accessed 16 August 2008
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wilson, Jeremy (1989). "T. E. Lawrence: family history". T. E. Lawrence Studies. Archived from the original on 30 November 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  4. ^ a b Arthur Vansittart at geneall.net, accessed 17 August 2008
  5. ^ Debrett's Illustrated Baronetage (London: Debrett, 1918) p. 135
  6. ^ a b c T. E. Lawrence's Family Tree Archived 15 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine at homepage3.nifty.com, accessed 25 August 2008
  7. ^ George Augustus Rochfort-Boyd was the son of Jane (nee Mackay), Countess of Belvedere (widow of George Rochfort, 2nd Earl of Belvedere; she died 1836) by her 2nd husband. The 2nd (and last) Earl of Belvedere (died 1814) left his unsettled (unentailed) estates to his widow, not his nephew the 3rd Earl of Lanesborough or a younger nephew. Jane, Countess of Belvedere, now a great Irish heiress, married her first husband's barrister, Abraham Boyd KC (1760–1822), in December 1815, and had an only son who inherited the estates on her death in 1836. The son changed his name by Royal Licence on 16 November 1867 from George Augustus Boyd to George Augustus Rochfort-Boyd.
  8. ^
    The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal, Mortimer-Percy Volume, p. 278
    online at books.google.co.uk, accessed 25 August 2008
  9. ISBN 978-0-670-06351-2
    ) p. 54
  10. ^ Florence, op. cit., p. 55
  11. ISBN 0-316-54232-6
    )
  12. ^ Florence, op. cit., p. 56
  13. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  14. Nancy Astor
    dated 21 March 1933)
  15. ^ CWGC entry for Second Lieutenant William George Lawrence
  16. ^ CWGC entry for Second Lieutenant Frank Helier Lawrence
  17. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1996.0005
    .
  18. ^ Cassels, Prof. James Macdonald in Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2007, online edition by Oxford University Press December 2007 (subscription required)
  19. ^ Family of James MacDonald Cassels and Jane Helen Thera Lawrence
  20. ^ Descendants of Thomas Thompson - RogerThompson.com - Family Tree
Baronetage of Ireland
Preceded by Baronet
(of Killua Castle)
1914–1919 		Extinct
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