Derby and District Astronomical Society



Dr Allan Chapman DPhil DSc DUniv FRAS
1946 - 2026




Some Personal Reflections
By Emeritus Professor Jonathan Powers


The sudden death of Allan Chapman on the 21st January 2026 is a great loss and not only to historical scholarship. He was a wonderfully kind and infinitely courteous man, whose deep erudition was displayed in his enthusiasm to share his knowledge. I first encountered him when I organised a weeklong Flamsteed Festival at the University of Derby to mark the 350th Anniversary of the Birth of John Flamsteed. Unlike the other lecturers he spoke without notes or slides, eloquently holding us all spellbound for more than an hour. He also unveiled the commemorative Stellarsphere near Flamsteed's birthplace in Denby. We stayed in touch over the years and in 2004 he came back to give a lecture in the Annual Flamsteed Lecture Series I used to organise, entitled Flying to the Moon in C17th England. It seemed wonderfully appropriate that a Fellow of Wadham College was giving this talk, for John Wilkins, who became Master of Wadham after the Civil War and a Founder of the Royal Society, published The Discovery of a World in the Moone in 1638.

I always visualise Allan wearing a colourful bow-tie and a tail-coat with a gold watch chain across his waistcoat. He looked like the epitome of an Edwardian gentleman scholar whose natural habitat was among the Dreaming Spires of Oxford. But with his charm and assiduous consideration for others, he could fit in anywhere. What I suspect many people do not realise is that his personal story was a triumph against inauspicious beginnings. He was born in 1946 in the former colliery town of Swinton, north of Manchester, where the deficiencies of the education system meant he failed his 11+ (like 85% of the population). So he went to what was then the Cromwell Road Secondary Modern School in Pendelbury. As was normal Allan left at 15 without any qualifications. Some years later he returned to his old school. "Hello, Chapman," a former teacher said, "so what are you doing now?" Allan replied, "I'm teaching at Oxford University actually." The incredulous reaction was, "What! Don't you need A-levels to do that?" Allan of course had the first of his three Doctorates by then. His story ought to be an inspiration to all those people who find themselves being 'written off' by an uncomprehending system.

He published a prodigious range of books, not only on John Flamsteed and the development of astronomy (and more recently on the history of medicine) but also biographies of Mary Somerville, William Buckland (the 'catastrophist geologist') and Robert Hooke, whom he dubbed 'England's Leonardo'. A special feature of some of his scholarly work was the construction of replica instruments when (as with Flamsteed's equipment) the originals were lost. Doing this enables questions to be asked which incomplete diagrams and descriptions cannot answer. In his letter about my booklet on the collaboration between John Whitehurst and Benjamin Franklin he described the way he had crafted a complete pendulum clock in wood, which people thought must be 400-500 years old! (He also commented that the problem of smoking chimneys the two of them had discussed, afflicted the former Lancashire pit cottage in which he had lived until the age of 13 - when they were rehoused in a Council House he likened to 'Buckingham Palace'!) Perhaps failing the 11+ had been an advantage because the Second Modern curriculum involved woodwork and metalwork, rather than Latin and Greek, and the skills he honed gave him unique insights into the craft of creating early scientific instruments. Members of the Derby & District Astronomical Society of course had the opportunity to examine his replicas of the instruments which Margaret Flamsteed removed from Greenwich, thanks to Allan's and Rachel's generous hospitality. In 2023 I was able to secure his written support to get Grade II Listing for No.27 Queen Street, Derby ('Flamsteed's House'). We will see what happens next.

I will treasure his elegant, hand-written letters though in recent years he had come to appreciate the advantage of e-mail over the fountain pen because of 'speed and escalating postal charges'. I fear we have all lost a good friend, but his legacy will live on.

Emeritus Professor Jonathan Powers DL DUniv FInstP FRSA


More memories of Allan Chapman, as well as some photographs, may be found in the following links to past DDAS events:

[Top]