About John
Chapman
I was born
I have been a Parish
Councillor since 1976 and was a District Councillor between 1979 and 2007, also
governor of several schools and served many years as a part time Lay Inspector
of schools. I was for many years Deputy Chairman of the Rail Users Consultative
Committee for Western England and Chairman of the South East Museums Service.
As a District Councillor my main area of activity was with Education
In recent years I have
become almost totally absorbed with the history of the Royal Berkshire Regiment
initially in the First World War and latterly with the 66th Regiment
at Maiwand. I am a trustee of the Regimental museum in Salisbury. This started
out as a research project at Reading University and we have published seven
books so far. Also I am building up a database of men who served in the Royal
Berkshire Regiment and its predecessors also of men from Berkshire who fought
in WW1 (currently running around 120,000 entries) and compiling a detailed
history of the Regiment during the First World War. I am currently working on
histories of the 1st/4th 2nd/4th and 7th
Battalions in the First World War, having been co-author of six other volumes.
As a member of Project
Purley, and currently chairman, I have had a long standing interest in the
history of our Parish, Purley on Thames. This has resulted in my acquiring a
vast archive of material about the parish. I give talks regularly to local
societies – for more details click here
I have been married to Ann
since 1966 and have three children:
Judith, Ian and Graham. My three children have their own connections to
the internet:-
Judith’s e-mail address
is:- judith.chapman258@btinternet.com ! Ian’s e-mail address is
iandavidchapman@gmail.com ! Graham’s e-mail address is graham_chapman@dell.com
Some Favourite Links
Great War
Forum ! The
Wardrobe ! CWGC ! NA ! BLHA
! BAS !
West Berks ! Reading
Forum | Geoffs Site
H01